My Father's Eyes
by Emmett's Coastie
Summary: When you have your entire life ahead of you, when you have plans of your own, how do you cope when it all ends, just as it was begining? In the limbo of eternity, the Cullens are a fixed point. Amidst loss and heartbreak, life endures. Forever.
1. Chapters 1 through 6

Prologue

I could hear the faint hum of the machines in contrast to their loud, periodic beeps. I could hear her labored, shallow breaths. I stood perfectly still in my corner and listened to them. They were so very feeble and weak. I listened to them along with the movement of the nurse as she worked around my mother's bedside. I could picture her movements in my mind, and place her location in the room. She bustled quietly enough, monitoring my mother's condition. The fabric of her clothes made soft swishing sounds with her every movement. Finally her movements floated past the door and around the corner of the hallway. I remained standing there for a long moment, simply listening. Without having to think of it, my feet carried me toward the sounds. As I came to the doorway, I heard the faint beats of her heart, slow and rhythmic.

My own heart had not beat in nearly 40 years, but it felt heavy in my chest now. And it seemed if it held any life at all, it would simply falter, and cease. Now that I was here, I wasn't so sure I wanted to see her. Carlisle was right. To see her in such a fragile state was not a way she should be remembered. And the image would stay with me, with perfect clarity, forever. But my feet kept moving toward the door to her room, as if someone else were controlling them. I didn't breathe. I didn't want to feel the sting of strong disinfectant burn down my throat; and I didn't want to risk feeling my throat burn for quite different reasons. But mostly, I didn't want to smell her.

She lay there in her bed, fast asleep. Her skin had become thin and nearly translucent. It hung off her cheek bones in a gaunt, ungodly way. And my heart fell heavier. I was wrong to have come here. I would see this forever in my mind, and I would always remember how the sickness had robbed her of life down to the very cells of her skin. I stood there and watched as her chest rose and fell with every breath, hitching now and again and faltering. Her eyes danced lazily behind her thin eyelids. She was dreaming. I smiled and let out a sharp exhale. My feet brought me forward once again, this time to her side. The moonlight came in through the window and fell on her forehead and face, exaggerating her sunken cheeks and sallow eyes. My chest felt tight, as if a great pressure were pressing upon it and I hesitantly drew in a small amount of air. I hadn't cried in four decades; I hadn't been able to. My eyes no longer produced tears, but every other action remained. A deep sob rose in my chest and my face contorted in pain as her scent enveloped me. It was sweet and warm like flowers in sunlight. I closed my eyes and breathed deeply. The warmth of it swirled around in me like a sweet embrace and I faintly remembered something from when I was a child. The memory was clouded and vague, but there none the less. Like a partial fingerprint. Whenever she had gone away for long periods of time, I would bury my face in her pillow and take in the very same scent.

I moved closer to her side and matched my breathing with hers. My hand came up to take hers in mine and I wondered if she would notice the temperature of my skin. Given her fever, I imagined even the most temperate hands felt like ice. I prayed it was so. The many consequences I had mulled and burned over in the past years ran through my mind again as I considered holding her hand in mine. What if she awoke? What if she recognized me? What if she was lucid enough to register that I had not aged? What if she noticed the difference in me? That my eyes were no longer a grayish blue? What if she noticed they were now a warm, honey colored gold?

I took my mother's frail hand gently and held it for the first time in nearly half a century. Her clear, hazel eyes opened, and looked directly into mine.

Plans

Even when cold and raining, winter in Kodiak was beautiful. I could see small droplets of water collecting on the brim of my hat as I walked to the boat. I had missed this, I had missed seeing the trees and mountains. Two months out in the Bering Sea had left that to be desired. I smiled as I watched sporadic flakes of snow floated about and swirlled in the midst of rain drops. It was a beautiful day. It was the 27th of March, exactly three months to the day since I had reported here, and nearly six since I had joined the Coast Guard. I removed my hands from my pockets as I climbed the steps to the brow and saluted the quarterdeck watchstander before turning and saluting the national ensign. It was warm and dry on the ship, I stowed my jacket and made my way to the shop to begin the day. I was glad that they had made me an engineer. I loved getting my hands dirty and getting to repair just about everything throughout the ship. It was old and required constant maintenance. Most of the boys were already there, idling around, waiting for muster and dailies to begin. I had made plans to go hiking with a few of them, but wondered if the weather would permit it.

"Yeah… I'd still go." Navage laughed as he shifted the pre-heater into place. "Just put that bolt there in the middle so it stays….there you go."

Casey Navage was a tall and stalky-built boy from Hawaii. He was the first person from my shop, and the boat, that I had met when I arrived on the island. Navie, as we affectionately referred to him, had been assigned as my sponsor before I had graduated boot camp. He had been my contact and mentor in my first few days, and like with most of the other guys in the shop, we had become fast friends. Navie was a brother to me.

"I have not been able to go hiking once since I've been here, when it warms up more I definitely want to go camping and fishing." I said as I braced the heavy, cold metal on my knee and twisted my arm to find the small hole.

"Yeah… Dorse and I went up that one trail behind the barracks before we got underway. We went when it was snowing so, we'll be fine. " he said.

"Oh I don't care if it snows… or rains. I've been here for three months and have barely seen any of the island. I wanted to come up here. It's beautiful, I want to be able to see some of it!"

" Yeah… there's a little pond back there, it's about an hour long hike." Navage said.

"Oh God, it's the end of March, you think the bears are awake?" I asked.

"Probably, I think hibernation ends in like, mid-February or something. Haha! One time Kalla and I went camping and this bear came up out of nowhere. I was like oh my God, Kalla… get back in the truck. I've never seen him run so fast. I nearly pissed myself…." He said. "I am not ashamed to admit that."

"Haha, oh! See! I heard everyone carries a gun on Kodiak because there are so many bears." I said.

" Yeah, but that was like the only one I've seen and I've gone camping like, five times since I've been here." Navage said as he placed bolts in their corresponding holes and tightened them. "You'll be fine, Brames, no bear is going to eat you."

We worked the rest of the day and made plans for the weekend. There were about five of us that wanted to go. Navie, Robbie Dorse, Greg Blume, Jamie Kalla and myself had talked about it all week. We needed to get out and see land. We had all been cooped up together for two months and desperately to be able to stretch our legs and walk out all the tension that had built within us. It was strange, we had been stuck together in 378 feet of ship in the middle of the ocean for an extended period of time, endured cabin fever, and now wanted nothing more than to spend our free time with each other. We were truly becoming a family.

I needed to make a run to the store, my fridge was still empty from before we had gotten underway and I could get supplies for the trip. The walk from the boat back to the barracks and commissary was only about fifteen minutes, but I could use the exercise. Working out in twenty foot swells is not easy, and cardio suffers greatly. There were a lot of families out today. A little girl completely bundled in a down jacket and beanie ran in front of her mother trying to hitch a ride on the shopping cart. She couldn't have been more than four years old, and there was an even younger boy in the child seat of the cart. A third child, maybe seven years old, was hunched between the mother and the cart, trying to push it as his mother looked over her receipt and yelled at the girl to get down from the side of the cart.

_Wow, three kids?_ I had to laugh, the girl was so cute. She argued with her mother in a small chipmunk voice, wanting to ride in the cart. The baby simply sat in his seat and quietly took in everything around him. I smiled at him when he looked at me and felt a small pang of envy as I watched them go. I knew I wanted kids some day, but I didn't want to have them while in the military. I didn't want to have to leave them for months at a time or have to move them around every few years. And I knew it would break my heart to miss any moment of them growing up. I wasn't even a parent yet, and already it ripped me to pieces to think of my kids growing up without me, not being as close with them as I was with my own mother. There was plenty of time though… if I left the Coast Guard after only four years, I would be twenty-six when I got out. Not a bad age to start having kids… and I would need a husband first. I kept walking past them and into the commissary trying to remember what exactly I needed to buy.

"Hi, pumpkin!" my mother's contented voice sounded through the speaker of my phone.

"Hey, Mom. How was your day? I asked.

"Long. The trucks didn't get there until eight, so I didn't get out on the route until eleven…crappy. " she said.

My mother was, and had been, a mail carrier for twenty years. Mondays were always her busiest days. The work load would start out incredibly heavy and lessen as the week wore on. I remembered she would never get home until late early in the week. I was close with my mom. Throughout my life, my experiences had always seemed to mirror hers; which made it incredibly easy for us to discuss things and for her to give advice. Neither of us believed that a friendship should supersede the fact that she was the parent, and I was her daughter, but we had a kinship that we had seldom found in anyone else. For that, it was not unusual or infantile to me to call her almost everyday. It was relieving to ask about her day, and tell her of mine.

" I just got home, we had to stay late to punch the boilers and then I had to run to the store." I said.

There was a brief pause.

"….Oh yeah? I'm sorry, Em." She said.

It was easy to hear the slight disappointment in her pause when I said "home." For my mother, my real home was still in a small town in California, where I had grown throughout the years, with her.

"Did you see _him_ today?" she implored with a smile in her voice.

"…Yes." I said with a stupidly coy smile growing on my face, beyond my control. " He talked to me."

His name was Marcus Cavanaugh. And he was beautiful. I didn't know much about him, it was difficult to find any time to really even talk to him. But he seemed nice, and along with myself, everyone loved him. I knew that he was from Maryland and had a brother, but beyond that, I only knew what I could observe of him. He was quiet and hardworking, and seemed to be a kind and fair man. He was just a touch taller than me, my forehead would have come up to his lips, which didn't seem bad at all. He was all muscle with full, stalky shoulders and dark wavy hair with dark blue eyes, like sapphires. He had nice smile, too. It was shy and confident all at once, and made me smile at the very thought of it.

"Oooo!" she squealed. "What'd he say?"

"Hi" I said. My smile now a full-blown 'aww shucks' grin.

"Aww, that doesn't _count!_" she contended.

"It's something!" I insisted. " I'm taking it slow, you can't rush these things…"

"No,haha, you can't. And I don't want you to. At all." She laughed.

"Mom… you're going to have to share me at some point…." I said.

"No I don't." she laughed. "Do you want to say hi to your Dad?

"Sure."

"Oh my God, it's such a beautiful day!" Navage said as we started out on the trail, there was still snow on the ground.

"Oh, oh God… I should have brought sunglasses…." Said Dorse.

"I know, like who would have ever thought the sun would come out in Kodiak?" said Kalla.

It was incredibly sunny for March. Several giant, water-logged clouds hovered in the sky and passed over the sun periodically, casting massive shadows against the mountains. The pines were still wet from the last rain and glistened as small droplets fell onto the snowy ground below. The trail was fairly clear, carved by the traffic of the occasional jeep or truck and wound up toward the mountain side. The air was cool, but the sun was warm where it touched my skin and warmed my clothes. It was perfect for hiking.

"Hey get a picture of me." Navage said, handing his camera to Dorse and pointing off in the distance.

"You always pose like that." Blume laughed and stood straight-backed with a small smirk on his lips as he mocked Navage, holding his arm straight out and pointing with his other hand resting on his hip.

"I do not!" Navage defended.

"Look at the pictures! Let me see that, you do it everytime!" Blume said as he took the camera from Dorse. It slipped from his hands and fell to the ground, rolling a few feet down the incline and into a patch of snow.

"Aww, oh God, oh there's blood everywhere…" Joked Dorse.

"It's okay! It's alright I saved it!" Blume shouted as he bent over and picked up the camera. "See look it still works, come here I'll show you. He does it everytime."

The view was truly breath taking. We had been climbing for about an hour and a half before we decided to stop and catch our breaths.

"Oh, only an hour he says!" Exhaled Kalla with a laugh.

"Well, that's as far as we went last time." Said Navage as he lowered himself to the ground, lying in a dry spot in the sun.

"Hey, Brames, can you get my water out of your pack and uh, hand it to me? I can't get up." Said Navage raising his arm from where he lay with his beanie pulled over his eyes.

"Yeah," I said removing the backpack from my shoulders and rummaging through the plastic grocery bags that separated our items to find his bottle. I threw it at his side, but it bounced on the hard earth and skipped into his exposed ribs.

"Oh!" I laughed, "I'm sorry!"

"Aaaahahhhh! What the hell?" he cried as he pulled a corner of his beanie from his eyes and looked around.

"Haha, I didn't mean to! It bounced!" I said.

"Haha, yeah Bramell! See Navie? That's what you get for being lazy!" laughed Kalla.

We were still laughing about it twenty minutes later while we made our way up the mountain. The trail had become narrower, changing from a jeep trail to a rocky foot path and the sky became overcast. The trees were gorgeous and the smell of pine and earth mixed beautifully with the fresh salt air. It was difficult to be able to look at all of it while watching your footing and slowed me down. The guys were about five feet in front of me as we moved into a steeper portion of the mountain. I looked up from my feet to see them moving further ahead. It felt so good to finally be hiking again, to be outside. I had missed this. Looking around, I couldn't wait to start camping and began making plans in my head for future trips with the guys. Dorse was the closest to me, about seven feet in front of me now. I watched where I placed my feet and looked up to see him disappear behind a mass of rock that jutted out from the mountain side. For a brief second, they were gone from my sight, and I was gone from theirs.

I was knocked sideways. The trees, cloudy sky, dirt, snow, pine needles, and rocks became a jumbled blur as a tumbled and fell down the side of the mountain. My back slammed against a slab of rock as I rolled violently and uncontrollably, knocking the wind out of me in a sharp gust. My knees and elbows knocked into the hard earth and snow and my leg caught the trunk of a small pine. I felt it break at the knee and wrap around the tree in a way it shouldn't. The catch spun my body and propelled me in another direction, still down the mountain. Then, I was floating.

I felt warmth run down my eyebrow to the inner corner of my eye as I opened them. The sun slowly crept from behind a dark grey cloud and streamed through the tops of the trees. Then it glowed red as the warmth trailed into my eye and blurred my vision. Someone was carrying me. Someone was screaming? The loud cry seemed distant, far away. But it came closer. Coming in ebbing waves, it grew louder. It was right above me. It sounded… agonized?

I wasn't floating anymore. I fell to the ground limply with a hard thud that jarred my body. I couldn't breathe. I tried to roll to my stomach and stand. The sound was moving. It was a growl. It was a bear. I was being mauled. I looked at my hand as I tried to roll myself over and saw that most of the skin on my knuckles was missing and was covered in dirt and blood. I sucked in what small amount of air I could manage and attempted to swing my leg in order to help shift my weight. It swung wildly and loosely at the knee as a sickening and blinding pain washed over me. The air I had managed to breathe in left my lungs in a gargled scream. The agonized growl moved in front of me. I twisted my head against the ground to look at it, to see where it was. But it wasn't a bear. It wasn't even an animal. There stood before me a man with long dark hair gathered in the back and tied with a strip of leather. He was tall and pale and handsome. And maybe it was because I had hit my head, maybe because I was being eaten alive by a bear and he was the only person around to rescue me, but could have sworn he was glowing. He looked angelic, beautiful and glittering in the sunlight as if his skin were made of millions of small diamonds.

"Help…. me." I grunted out slowly.

His face contorted in pain and he turned away from me as he screamed in agony. Growled in agony.

It didn't make sense to me. Why wouldn't he help me? He had made the same noise as the bear had. And why was he so upset? Why did he seem so troubled? I needed him to help me. I didn't understand why he wouldn't help….

"….please…" I whispered.

He had turned so quickly, I had to blink to wash the blood from my eye. His eyes were wild and his face was no longer in pain, but looked greedy. He stood perfectly still and viewed me with wide, eager eyes… red eyes.

I didn't see him move. I had looked him in his strange red eyes and then everything went black. My body was on fire. I was falling again, through flames I could not see. I felt my mouth open to scream, but nothing came out. The immense pain constricted my throat and strangled any noise. The intensity of the fire grew and my heart raced. I was burning alive, I was dying. I wanted to scream. I wanted for someone to hear me, to find me and put out the fire. I wanted the guys to hear me. I wanted to cry out for my mother to come and save me, to make it stop. I wanted it to be over. I wanted to die. My heart pounded in my chest as the heat grew in intensity and felt as though it were vibrating. I couldn't breathe. My body was too riddled with pain to function, paralyzed by it. My heart beat violently and raced beyond what I could have thought possible. It raced faster and more wildly as the fire burned around it.

And then, just like that, it shuddered and stopped.

What Alice Saw

It was quiet here, peaceful. Death was beautiful and simple, and I lay comfortably in the cool dark as a soft breeze wove through my hair and brushed gently over my skin. There was a soft plinking sound on the ground around me, and a thousand separate, small ruffling sounds swirling in the air above me. There was no need to breathe, I felt no burning urge to draw air into my lungs. No natural yearn for oxygen. But it felt as though I should, purely out of habit. My chest expanded and air cascaded down my throat, flooding my lungs. It was thick with the taste of pine and earth and water and stone. There was the faint scent of decomposing leaves and pine needles that splashed up from the ground in correspondence to the soft plinking. How curious it all was. I floated there for a long time, simply existing, and listening and tasting. But my bemused curiosity soon compelled me to know the source of the soft plinking, to understand what caused it. I wanted to know where it came from. But I couldn't see its source, it was too dark here. My eyes were closed. Without having to think of it, they snapped open.

It was night, and the dark trees stretched above me reaching toward the bright, brilliant stars. It must have a full moon tonight, because it was so very bright. I could see every detail of the landscape around me with perfect clarity as if in sunlight. Was this Heaven? It certainly was beautiful …and so rich with sensory. Snow swirled and danced in the wind with a soft rustling and a quaint plink as it touched the ground….

_Oh!_ _There it is!_

I moved to place my face closer to the ground and listened intently as I focused on one snow flake and watched it fall gracefully to the ground where it landed with a soft whisper of a plink. I watched with rapture as another particularly beautiful and detailed flake drifted and settled not two feet away from the first. This must have been Heaven. It was all too hyper-real to be life, and I had died. I thought back to the fire. It seemed so long ago now, but the burning had happened, and when it ceased, when it had finally died away, my heart failed.

But why the fire? Why the burning? Why was I alone throughout the pain? Why was I alone now? I stood and looked around me. There were so many loved ones I wanted to see again, so much I had to tell them. Excitement rose in me and I began to run searching and calling out for them. My feet carried me so far so quickly, like flying…. The air rushed in my ears and pulled at my clothes as a pushed further into the woods. I ran and never tired, I must have covered more than several miles, but my breath came in steady and slow as if I were strolling leisurely. In fact, I had no need of breathing. It was exhilarating.

The winds grew strong as I slowed to look around me. It swirled and changed direction. The thick scent of salt air and earth transformed. The gusts carried a new, intriguing taste. It was magnetic. I was completely distracted by it and lured to move closer to its source. I followed it as it shifted on the winds, catching faint echoes of it. I ran toward the south where it grew more distinct. Then I was running directly into the wind and the strangely appealing taste came on in its entirety. I was hit by it as if I had run directly into a wall, and with it, the fire returned. It burned unforgivingly in my throat and chest and wormed its way through my brain, consuming me. It was agonizing, it was maddening. My mouth baked as I staggered forward into a small stream. But the water was oddly unappealing when my throat was so dry and starved. The scent poured down my lungs like liquid fire, but beckoned me closer still. There in a small clearing, something heavy plodded along lazily. Its heavy, padded feet smashed and crinkled grass as it shifted its weight. Loud torrents of air pushed from its mouth as it softly snorted and slowly breathed…. and there was another sound. A soft, yet powerful wooshing followed by a rhythmic, pulsating thud. I followed it.

My eyes raked over the landscape franticly seeking the place the pulsating sound emanated from. And it was there on the edge of the meadow, a large bear pawed at rooted at the base of a tree. I stopped. The wooshing and pulsating thuds boomed in my ears and my throat twinged in a painful ache. I wanted it to stop. Steam rose off of the large bear's back as its heat clashed with the cool night air. The steam twisted and swayed in the wind. A maddening need overtook me and consumed my every thought. I could cross the clearing in no time at all, it would be so quick, it wouldn't even notice me. My mouth made to close around its throat. The urge to gnaw, chew and cut through to the hot liquid pulsing beneath the fur and skin gripped me. Again, before I could make the conscious effort, my legs propelled me toward the animal.

My hands were already grasping fistfuls of its fur.

I stood very still. The wind whipped and tore around me as more snow began to fall. It no longer floated gracefully on the wind, but shot through the air with a force that pelted the ground. The wisps of fur that stuck to me whipped lifelessly in the wind, where they were loose and not matted down with blood. The pulsing thuds had stopped and all that could be heard was the wind as it moved through the pines and grass and the trickle of a nearby stream. My throat no longer burned. It was quiet and satisfied now, it no longer demanded the thick liquid that had now cooled and covered my hands, face and torso. I stood very still, and recounted the events that had just occurred. What was, at the time, an impatient blur of mindlessness, came back with perfect recall. This was not Heaven. If it were, I would not be alone. I would not be left to burn with a fire that consumed my very being. I would not have felt the greediness that now felt selfishly satisfied. Those things had no place in Heaven. The beauty that surrounded me served only as a cruel mockery and the hyper-sensitivity to those surroundings served only to torture me. I would not find lost loved ones here, I would not find God. I was in Hell.

I ran. I ran as far as I could without tiring, without craving water or feeling my chest tighten as I would have before. I ran until I came to a road. It was made of well-worn asphalt and stretched into the falling snow and coming morning. Off to the right, covered in ice, stood a sign, with an arrow pointing down the road and horror flooded me. It was an impossibility. But surely, such horrible things could indeed exist in Hell. The sign pointed to the Kodiak Airport, 3 miles in the direction the arrow indicated. I could not go back. I could not gamble the chance of them being there, alive and well. I could imagine all of their faces. I could see my boys, my brothers. I could see Marc, and I could see my parents… but I could not see myself returning to their lives when mine no longer was. I was dead. I had no life to include them in. I turned to face the small stretch of ocean that separated the island of Kodiak from the state of Alaska. I had no need to breathe, my body would not go into hypothermia in the forty-eight degree water. I swam to the other shore and did not stop. I ran into the oncoming morning light. I ran to where there was no feable glow of house lights or street lamps. I ran to where there wouldn't be a living soul.

I heard her call my name before I heard her soft footfalls behind me. My back tensed and I spun around to face her, cutting deep ruts into the earth as I came to a halt. Every muscle was coiled and tight, bracing for any sign of an attack.

"Emma?" she whispered cautiously.

I didn't answer her. I didn't move from my defensive stance. I didn't blink or breathe. I stood very still and watched her every miniscule movement.

"Emma Sophia Bramell, " she breathed with a small smile and held out her hand, palm facing up. "My name is Alice, and it 's very nice to finally meet you."

Invitations

ALICE

Rosalie sat cross-legged on the floor of the living room as she painted Renesmee's toe nails a vibrant magenta. They giggled and gushed while Jacob furrowed his brow at the deep purple Renesmee was now painting on his fingernails. When she had finished one hand, he blew on them forcefully before smiling and surrendering the other. The morning news channel droned quietly as Jazz and Emmett constructed an elaborate house out of playing cards and Esme hummed and busied herself in the garden. Edward, Carlilse and Bella had left late in the night for a hunting trip in the south-western region of Montana and weren't expected to return until the following day.

On the dining room table lay invitations to the wedding of Kate and William, one of the Denali sisters and the tall revolutionary war nomad that had come here as a witness for us against the Volturi a few years ago. The only surprising part of the invitations was that it had taken so long for them to be sent. It was no shocking matter that they were getting hitched after all, and it meant a celebration, which meant _shopping_. Though maddening, it was quite understandable for Kate not to allow anyone, myself included, to plan the wedding. She wanted only for a small, quiet gathering at their home in Denali. Undoubtedly, having a joyous celebration so soon after losing Irina must have been difficult enough without extravagance. So I kept my mouth shut, and planned only what to wear . For the entire Cullen family. I was in the middle of discussing the details of Renesmee's bronze, silk wrap with Claude, my designer in Paris; and sketching a charcoal colored, tailored suit for Jacob wondering if it should have a tie that matched Nessie's dress.

The anchorman on the news discussed the results of last night's final four college basketball game while Emmett added a balcony and lounge chair to the 17th floor of the house of cards.

"Mercy beaucoup, Claude!" I trilled and slid closed the tiny black cell phone Jasper had gotten me.

"Aww, come on!" Emmett shouted as Jazz out did him with complete patio furniture set made of face cards.

_And moving on now to our reporter in the field, Cindy Marcom, who is covering the continued search for a missing Coast Guardsman in Kodiak, Alaska. Cindy?_

Renesmee and Jacob began discussing whether or not to use glitter or paint poka-dots on his toe nails when it happened. It was brief, but vivid and very solid. My eyes no longer focused on the sketch of Esme's low cut, black dress, but on a face that shone somewhere behind my eyes. Her eyes were a deep, grayish blue, and her face flashed in my mind before images of pines and snow capped mountains flickered and swirled with sounds I couldn't distinguish. Then her eyes turned. They morphed and shifted from blue to red to a light amber… she was walking now, through a sunny meadow with Rosalie, and her skin shone and glittered in the bright light of day.

"Alice?" Jasper asked again. He stood in front of me with his hands on my shoulders. "Are you alright?"

"Yes," I said smiling at him assuringly. "I'm perfectly fine."

_Tom, I'm here in Kodiak, Alaska where the United States Coast Guard continues to search for one of their own. It's been three days s since Fireman Emma Brammell disappeared while hiking with several of her….._

I stood thinking of the face of the young girl that had left my mind just as abrubtly as it had arrived and thought of all I had seen. Who was she? And why, why would she ever be walking with Rosalie? I turned my attention to the news woman as she stood on the pier next to a large ship and spoke of a missing girl in Alaska. A picture of the young woman flashed up on the screen, she must have been in her early twenties. Her hair was short and dark brown and she had deep, clear gray-blue eyes. I froze. Her name was Emma. She was twenty-two and the daughter of Dennis and Maureen Brammel. She had gone missing two weeks ago in the pines and snow capped mountains, and sometime from now, she was going to be a part of this family.

"Jasper, honey, we're going to Alaska early."

I didn't know who she was. I had never seen her face before. I had never heard her voice. But she stood about a hundred yards ahead of me, with her hand held out invitingly. She was small, with short pixie like hair. She was beautiful. Her skin glittered in the morning light as it peeked over the eastern mountain range, just as I had seen once before. It was the same shimmering, diamond-like glow that the man with red eyes had….

But her eyes were not red, now that I focused on them, I saw that they were actually quite different. They were a warm, honey colored hue. And the way the light hit them, made them shine brightly and clear to see. And her face was not greedy or pained or hungry, it was calm and sweet. There was something comforting and reassuring about it, something honest.

"Emma, do you understand what has happened to you? Has anyone explained?" She asked.

I stayed very still and did not answer her. I watched her. I took in a small amount of air into my lungs. I could taste the frost and moss on the trees and ground around me and the ice that floated on the slight breeze. I could smell her. She was sweet and floral with a light scent of something else….

"Chanel." She said smiling. "And these," she said pointing to her fashionable calf-high boots "are Gucci." She smiled brightly again and laughed. It was like music.

I simply gawked at her.

Her smile faded slightly as she regarded me again and became more serious.

"Not far from here, my family is waiting." she said. "Emma, I know you have absolutely no basis for trusting me, but I would love for you to come with us."

I continued to watch her. I breathed in her soft flowery scent and Chanel. Without my permission, or even knowing why, my shoulders began to loosen and relax.

"I know you're scared." She said with a very genuine, caring voice. "I know you are confused and frightened, I've been where you are now. But you don't have to be alone in this like I was."

She took a step forward. And I took one back.

"Like I said, you have no reason to trust me, I'm a stranger to you now." She breathed, "But Emma, believe me, I would never hurt you." She took another step forward. "And you would never hurt me, I trust that. I know that."

"You don't know that." I countered.

"I do." She affirmed, again her voice rang with honesty.

Her warm golden eyes looked directly into mine and she smiled softly as her arm raised slowly from her side and she held her hand out once again, palm facing up.

Without thinking, my feet carried me forward. I had no reason at all for trusting her. I knew nothing about her, other than her name, if it really was her name. I had no obligation to believe her words or feel safe. I had no reason to walk closer to her, take her hand and to follow her. I had no reason to trust in the honesty her eyes held. But I did. My feet brought me to her and she beamed. I looked at her outstretched invitation and raised my hand to place it in hers. For the first time, I saw how the sunlight caught my skin. It glittered brightly in the fresh morning light as hers did, as the man in the woods had. As I placed my hand in hers, she gave it a gentle squeeze and visibly bounced with excitement.

"Yay!" she squealed. " Let's go home and get you cleaned up, because… oh sweetheart you are filthy."

Ties

The United States Coast Guard conducted one of the largest searches for a single person in its history. For three weeks they combed through trees, past well-worn trails, over rocks, across mountains and looked down from the sky to find me. It made national news for one solid week, and again two weeks later when the SAR mission had been called off. Through media reports I learned that my parents had moved to Alaska. They had become part of the ground crews that searched for me. And when it ended, they searched on their own. I had seen them on the news once. My father was briefly interviewed. There wasn't much that he could say and he began repeating himself, as he often did. His voice shook and sounded strangled. His grey hair was longer than the last time I had seen him and his eyes looked tired. They didn't have a light in them as they usually did. They were the same grayish-blue, but somehow darkened.

I stood at the western wall on the second floor of the house, it was made completely of glass. I looked out on the sheets of rain as they drifted and fell, one right after the other. Months had passed. There was no more news that concerned me. My connection to my parents through the media and been severed. The image of my father's face stayed behind my eyes. It lingered there. I would imagine it, and see the deep creases in his forehead when he concentrated on his words. I would see the darker grey that remained in his mustache, mixed in with the lighter, nearly white hair and remembered when it held some of the original dark brown. It had been so long ago. I recalled, somewhere deep in the recesses of my mind an old memory. I was five and it was sunny. I stood on an old tree stump in the front of our house. I was upset about something that I had heard in school. A teacher had told us of the dangerous and deadly effects of tobacco and alcohol. Like most fathers, mine drank beer and chewed tobacco. I was crying because I didn't want him to die.

_Hey! I'm not going anywhere…_ I remembered him saying. _I will never, ever leave you… I'm your father, I'm not going anywhere…._

I could see the concern in his eyes. The sadness that came when I had started to cry and the sincerity in them as he spoke. I could clearly see the very same gray-blue eyes that I had inherited and once had. I stared past my reflection in the window, seeing past it and focusing on the rain as it fell over Washington. I didn't want to see the difference in the eyes my father had given me. I wanted to remember them as they were. I wanted to keep that image forever, and keep that connection to my father, I wanted to hold on to anything that tied me to him, to my mother, my family. But through the rain and glass, dark burgundy eyes stared back at me.

"Just once! That's all, I promise. Just one time and I won't ask ever again." Emmett pleaded enthusiastically.

I turned my head to look at him fully, incredulousness brutally evident in my raised eyebrows.

"Really?" I asked. "Haha! Emmett, I somehow doubt you would only ask once."

"I would." He defended, and I laughed out loud.

I stood from the sofa and began putting away the State of Idaho maps that had been sprawled out on the coffee table. Emmett, Edward, Alice and myself were due for a hunting trip and had decided on a land reserve in northern Idaho. It was far enough from home that we did not exhaust the resources around us, but close enough to be back at a moment's notice. Edward did not feel comfortable being too far from his wife and child.

"No." I said.

"Oh, c'mon!" He whined. "You're just scared I'll beat you."

He smiled smugly and folded his large arms across his chest, forcing the thick bands of muscle in his forearms to bulge.

"Bella told me." I said teasingly as a grin spread slowly across my face. "Well, so did Jasper and Edward…. And Jacob.

He balked and dropped his arms, letting them swing.

"They exaggerate." He said.

"You know how this is going to turn out, you're going to lose and throw a fit about it. You're going to ask again and again until you win." I said.

The smugness returned to his face.

"That sounds like a yes." He grinned.

" I am not going to arm wrestle you, Emmett." I said as matter of factly as I could. "Besides, I wouldn't want to hurt you." I added. A small smile pulled at the corner of my lips, ruining the dry humor I had been trying for.

"Ha!" he scoffed.

Alice was storming around on the third level of the house, speaking very quickly in French to a man on the phone. She was upset that one of the Denali sister's wedding had been postponed and arrangements she had made in Paris had to be cancelled.

"How am I supposed to know what season I'm dealing with if they can't set a date and stick with it?" she asked irritated as a loud click sounded from the closing of a cell phone. She flitted down the stairs pulling on a puffy winter coat for our trip, keeping up appearances, shaking her head.

"Ready?" She asked, letting out a heavy sigh.

" 'Bout time! I'm starving!" Emmett whined.

"I'm sure you'll manage" she replied.

We set out east, not taking very much time at all to reach the Idaho/Washington boarder. Emmett's jeep sloshed through mud and crushed through small saplings as we headed off an old dirt road, farther into a more secluded portion of the forest. We left it hidden in a thicket of brush and began roaming on foot, letting the surroundings seep into our senses and began searching. Emmett and Edward horsed around as we walked, punching each other in the shoulder periodically as they talked. Alice and I walked together as we made our way through a steep valley between mountains. Emmett's booming laughter cracked through the air and shivered nearby trees as he and Edward joked. I looked back at them and smiled before returning my attention to Alice's latest musings of giving me a makeover.

"You know," she said, eyeing me and calculating, "you've got the perfect shape for this cocktail dress Versaci has in her collection, you have a sort of athletic build…"

"Ha! When would I require a cocktail dress?" I laughed and looked at her quizzically.

"Well, there's always an occasion, Emma!" she smiled. "And you'd totally look hot."

"Ah, well there's no one to impress, really." I said, my eyes downcast, watching my feet as we walked.

"There's always someone to impress." She said in a quieter tone, playfully nudging me in the ribs.

The wide smile I had worn moments before quieted into a small twist in my lips and images of Marc formed behind my eyes. They swam around in a fluid motion, each fading into the next. His deep eyes melted in a slow swirl, replaced by an image of his lips as they pulled up at the corners into a small, shy smile. I could remember standing next to him in a large group of people as he talked, scrunched up inches away from his side while we stood in the small space. I could remember the warmth of his arm next to mine, and feeling his breath wisp against my face and neck as he spoke… he had a lovely, light and refreshing scent. I remembered being surprised at how wonderful he smelled, and wanting to close the inches between us to breathe it in…. There would be no need for a cocktail dress. He was no longer someone I could hope to impress. I idly wondered where he was and what he would be doing at that moment.

A wry and bitter pang of disappointment washed through me. It didn't matter where he was, or what he was doing at that moment. Whatever he was up to, did not, and would not ever include me. He had a whole life before him, a wide space to fill with a lifetime of memories, of connections with loved ones. Whatever connection had been budding between us, whatever possible future with him that once existed, no longer was. Whatever tie I may have or could possibly have made with him was no longer a possibility. Time would pass, and he would age. He would make a rich, full life with a family that he loved and that loved him. Time would carry him with it as it passed by me, and take him where I could not follow.

Emmett paused, standing stalk still as the evening breeze brought a faint taste that lingered in my senses and caused my throat to twinge with a slight burn. I closed my eyes and breathed it in. I listened in the quiet that surrounded us for the soft, padded trudging that plodded over granite to the northeast. My eyes clicked open and flashed to Emmett's enthusiastic grin. His eyes met mine, bright with the promise of a challenge.

"Race ya…" he murmured and bolted forward.

I left Alice and Edward with a parting smile and tore after him. Emmett was fast, but I could keep up. I could see him ahead of me, I was closing the distance between us. A look over his shoulder told him I was gaining ground. Then a vicious crack sounded and reverberated off of the rocks as a large tree shuddered under Emmett's fist and came crashing down in my path. His laughter boomed.

" Come on, you move like a grandmother!" he shouted over his shoulder.

I leapt over the fallen tree rather than losing time going around it, "You're going to spook it!" I whispered, knowing he would hear me. A large boulder shot my way, and I dived below it, rolling back up from the ground, into my run. "Cheater." I breathed and I could hear a mischievous peal of laughter.

I was close, covering the ground between us in a few short bounds. In his stride, Emmett wrapped his large hand around the base of a small tree, ripping it from its roots as he went. He spun around and swung it like a baseball bat, aiming squarely for my torso. I fell back, collapsing my legs beneath me and slid under it as he swung, earth and flora shot up from the ground around me. I pushed myself forward increasing the gap created by his losing momentum. A roar of defeat ripped through his chest and he raced after me.

"You move like _my_ grandmother!" I teased, looking over my shoulder. His eyes were focused and alight with competiveness. He launched himself at me. Large, strong arms wrapped themselves around my waist as we collided, pulling me down. The ground shuddered as we came crashing into it, tumbling with our forward momentum. Splinters and chunks of wood sent flying as we knocked through trees and crashed into the boulders that made up the talice at the base of the mountain. His laughter sounded next my ear as we came to a halt. It was met with the hurried trampling of padded feet that moved away from us. We both lay still, listening to it, exacting its location. I followed the sound with my eyes up the mountain to where the bear quickly climbed upwards, its heart rate increased. I looked back to Emmett who mostly lay on top of me, pinning me to the ground. For one moment, without the evening sun to shine off his skin, his dark, wavy hair lay in contrast to his pale skin with a familiarity. Something about it appeared so human. With his eyes now focused on the retreating bear, a small smile began to pull at the corner of his lips. And the small echo of something familiar grew to recognize his smile. His dark, wavy hair. For just a moment, it reminded me of someone else.

"Guess I did spook it." He said, the quaint smile now growing to a grin and his eyes met mine. "I call dibs." And he was gone. He raced up the mountain, his powerful legs carrying him faster than the bear. I lay stunned for a second, before the fog of thoughts that clouded my head lifted enough for me to come back to the present and I followed after him.

Mirrors

The late autumn sun hung over the ridge to the west, sending light bursting through the pines that lined the peaks. Fresh tilled earth gave beneath my feet as I stood in the garden on the western side of the house. One after the other, I handed Esme bulbs to be planted. We talked of things that floated through our minds, and she educated me on perennial and seasonal flowers. It was relaxing here, conversation flowed easily and the light, crisp breeze that gently rustled the falling leaves, swirled and wafted the smell of the earth into my lungs.

"I placed the garden on the western side of the house to catch the afternoon sun… when there is sun. " She added. "It warms the summer flowers, giving them a more potent scent."

Esme smiled easily as she talked, her eyes alight with the gentle glow of contentment. " I'll open every window and door and let the bouquet fill the house completely."

I smiled at her description, wishing the summer would stay longer.

She paused her movements momentarily before looking up at me, a strained curiosity forming on her features.

"Em, honey?" she asked gently.

"Yes?" I asked.

"What?" Emmett shouted, poking his head out of a window on the second floor.

"Oh…. Not you, Emmett." She said, waving him away. "Oh Emma, sweetheart, we are going to have to find a new nickname for you."

Her eyes were warm and kind as she considered me, a small crease forming between them as she formulated her words.

"Are you happy here?" she asked quietly. "…with us?"

I paused, staring at the bulb I had been rolling around in my hand. It wasn't something I had expected her to ask.

"I don't mean to press you, honey. It's, it's just that… well, we're so happy with you here." She added.

There was a quiet sincerity in her eyes that touched the rest of her face and radiated from her. There was something very motherly in her words as she spoke them, an unconditional and unquestionable acceptance. This was Esme. This was her way, the gift God had given her to share with the world, with her children. I had seen it in the very walls she had built to house and shelter her family, in every effort and smile she made for them. And she looked at me now with the same adoration and loving care that I had seen when she looked at Emmet and Jasper. When she held Renesmee and laughed with Bella. The same love she had for Edward and Alice and Rosalie. Even Jacob was a son to her.

Esme was not my mother, nor would she ever be. Not my real mother. But nor was she the biological mother of her six children. She had not given birth to them, they were not her blood, but that mattered little. As I had witnessed before in life, it was not tangible bonds such as DNA that made a brother. It was not shared blood that constituted a family, but rather a bond that reached deeper than physical ties, to something on the soul level. It was love that bonded them, that made them a family. I had a family of my own. Somewhere far north of where I stood, they lived and breathed, going about their daily lives. But here, nestled in the woods stood a house filled with people I considered kin. Each of them held their own place in my heart. And with every passing moment, those spaces grew.

I could feel my eyes grow soft with an emotion I had no word for as I looked into Esme's. All at once it felt as though my heart broke _and_ swelled. It felt pulled in two different directions. As if she could read the thoughts on my face, Esme spoke.

"I could never replace your mother, dear. And I'm not trying to." She eased. "But however you think of me, I will always think of you as a daughter."

I could see it in her eyes, and feel it in every word. There was a warmth in her that radiated outwards and flooded through me. The unreserved affection that she held for me brought whispers of my own mother. I could see her face. Hear her voice faintly echo my name. I could smell her as I did when she held me close and could nearly remember how it felt to have her arms gently wrap around me. I could feel the comfort they brought. There were no words to say. There was nothing that could have been spoken that she did not see in me then. And as a mother always seems to know, Esme's gentle eyes grew with understanding, and she smiled knowingly.

Jacob and Emmett were swinging violently as they laughed and prodded each other with insults. Jacob was now on his feet as he concentrated, white controller in hand, on the tennis court that played out on the television screen. Wii sports was a revelation in their eyes. As I watched them, Edward sat at his piano, teaching Renesmee a rather complicated piece. It was one of my favorites. She was a quick study, and mirrored his movements as she watched his hands move along the keys.

"Oh! Take that! Take! That!" Jacob shouted, emphasizing every word with a jolt of the controller. His 'mini Jake' avatar swung at the tennis ball, sending it diagonally down court as Emmett smashed it back in his direction. It was indeed a genius invention. We could now play tennis without destroying countless rackets and balls with every serve.

"No way, kid. Johnny Macinroe had nothin' on me!" Emmett said, as he brought down a powerful serve.

I laughed as I watched them, listening to the beautiful tones emanating from the baby grand. Emmett smiled as he won another set, creating deep dimples on either side of his wide smile. For a such big, virile guy, he had such a baby-face grin. He brought his arm up to serve again, and his wide shoulders pulled and stretched the fabric of his shirt. His sleeve fell slightly, revealing more of his upper arm. I could see every muscle contract and extend with his movements. As he brought his arm down, I could see the detail in the muscles of his back as they moved under his shirt. My eyes trailed up along them to the nape of his neck, to his dark wavy hair. His head turned slightly as he fired an insult at Jacob and I could see the small, familiar grin pulling at the corners of his mouth- the music faltered ever so slightly.

I sat frozen on the couch. My eyes wide with shock.

"_Edward?"_ I thought.

In my peripheral vision, I could see his head tilt ever so slightly in my direction as he continued, letting Renesmee play as he contributed bass tones.

"_I would never._ "I thought, pouring as much sincerity into my words as possible and wondering if he could hear the tone of thoughts.

His head inclined in a slight nod, his vision never breaking from Renesmee's hands.

"_It's not him I'm thinking of." _I thought and concentrated on images of Marc. Comparing them to Emmett to show the similarity. "_Emmett reminds me of him sometimes. And that is all. I would never even consider it." _I thought with a tone of finality.

Again his head tilted with a slight nod in my direction.

"OH! Game! Set! Match! Biyatch-" Emmett's words were cut short with a look of warning from both Edward and Jacob. Emmett's eyes flicked to Renesme.

"Oh, right. Sorry." He added sheepishly. "Let's play boxing next!" he boomed, eyes glued to the screen.

Changes

The leaves that fell in autumn were covered over with snow, and washed away by showers of rain as winter gave to spring. The old and decaying had given way to new growth, and blossoms floated on gentle breezes. Clouds drifted across the sky and obscured a sun that rose and set in a steady, never ending cycle. And Renesmee grew. In the brief year I had known her, she had grown a solid two and a half feet and seemed to develop from the age of four to ten. She went through clothes constantly, but that mattered little with endless funding coupled with Alice and Rosalie's unyielding penchant for dressing her.

"Sometimes I wonder if we're doing the right thing, hiding her away from the world." Bella mused as we walked. A small crease forming between her eyes as she regarded her daughter.

Ahead of us, Renesmee and Edward jumped from tree to tree as Jacob raced below them. His gigantic wolf form playfully nipping at her toes when she dared to venture close enough to the ground. An excited bark shot from Jacob as he danced below Renesmee. Edward dove down from the top of an old pine, quickly tagging Jake on the tail before lithely springing back into an adjacent tree; earning a musical peel of giggles from his daughter.

"It can't be easy for her, not being able to live a normal, little girl life." Bella continued. "Having to hide who she is from the world, not getting to experience a normal childhood… She even has to hold back in front of Charlie."

Bella's father, Charlie was a man of practicality. His mind's ability to retain a firm grip on reality must have been tested extensively, given the surreal truths that surrounded him. But I had seen the way he looked at his grandchild. However inexplicable her existence was, his absolute adoration for her outweighed any shock or disbelief. I had a strong suspicion though, that if she were to leap twenty feet in the air as she did now, while he were present, he may suffer an aneurism.

"Yeah, but it's better than the alternative." I offered. "At least this way, she gets to stay here, surrounded by loved ones, rather than having to move constantly to avoid suspicion. At least here, she can be with her entire family. She can be with Charlie and Jake."

There was no real way to introduce Renesmee to a small community that would notice only too well how very quickly she matured. There was no way to linger here once they had known her. At some point only too soon, some excuse would have to be made. Some story would have to be fabricated to excuse her absence. Some public story to explain why Mr. and Mrs. Edward Cullen and their lovely daughter had to move away. But that would mean parting from Charlie. It would mean splitting a family apart. And so, for now, our beloved Nessie was privy to the finest homeschooling available. Given that her own father held several doctorates and medical degrees, and nearly everyone spoke a multitude of languages. Fluently.

Bella smiled understandingly, watching as her family made their way through the woods.

"She looks like you." I smiled.

Bella's contented smile grew and a small laugh escaped her lips. "Mmm, I think she has more Edward." She said. "She has my eyes, but mostly looks like him. Well, she has Charlie's eyes." She added.

A small pang of shock reverberated through me, leaving every nerve stunned. What air was in my lungs stuck in my throat, paused with the rest of me, and I stared silently at her.

"I had my Dad's eyes too. " I said in a small voice. I couldn't look at her now, I could only stare blindly in front of me. The shock coursed through me like ice water.

Bella's smile fell, and she regarded me with regretful eyes. It wasn't her fault, she had done nothing wrong in this casual mention. If anyone were to understand what it meant, if anyone could know how very personal it was to me then, it was her. She also had inherited her father's eyes, and she too had lost them. Traded for ones that were inherited through a second family. Mine were no longer the same gray, blue that I had seen in my Dad, but very same gold topaz hue of my sister. I looked through the eyes I had inherited from those whom I loved. From those who loved me. From those who made whatever hand I had been dealt, something worth living for. Not just simply existing. In the limbo of eternity, the Cullens were a fixed point. Life, where life no longer existed.

"You know," I said pensively. "when I was born, my eyes were violet."

I looked at Bella then, a small laugh escaping from my lips.

Nearly three quarters of a mile to the east, a small group of elk grazed on the edge of the forest. We moved forward, letting the scent overwhelm our senses, taking them completely. I moved fluidly, my legs carrying me closer to the source. Closer and closer, I moved forward with my family.

"For the love of all that is Holy!"

Alice's eyes came back to the present and her body tensed with an irritation that had reached its peak.

"What?" Emmett asked, a puzzled look on his face.

"Ask him." She spat out flatly, pointing in the direction of the highway. Carlisle's car left the pavement and turned down the narrow drive to the Cullen house. A slightly amused, but compassionate look crossed Edward's face as he watched his sister storm out the balcony door, throwing her hands in the air as she went.

Carlisle entered moments later, a knowing looking on his face as he glanced at the empty balcony.

"I received a phone call today from Tanya," he explained. "It seems that Kate and her William have parted ways."

Rosalie returned her attention to braiding Renesmee's hair, with complete indifference. But Renesmee's face fell with a slight sadness. With Jasper away hunting with Jacob and Esme, I followed the path Alice had taken. The forest was alive in the late spring weather; and as I moved by, I could hear the slight pause of a few ground squirrels before they retreated. I took a few steps before bounding over the river, and jogged easily below the massive pines. It wasn't hard to find her, her light floral scent wound like an invisible ribbon through the trees, and her irritated mumbling could be heard miles away. She was sitting on the bow of a large hemlock, picking pieces off a small river stone and letting them drop to the ground.

"I'm sorry." I said, looking up from the base of the tree.

"Why? It isn't your fault. Why be sorry?" she spat quietly.

I sighed and looked at my feet, shuffling them around and moving the litter and duff from side to side; choosing my words carefully to try and calm her down.

"I know how much thought you've put into this, and I'm just sorry it didn't come to fruition in the end." I said.

Alice sat quietly, staring out at the northern mountain range. After a moment she patted the space next to her on the large limb. I leapt to the branches below and quickly climbed to the one she occupied. I sat next to her and watched the clouds roam over the sky. She tapped her fingers against the moss that covered the top of the branch and pursed her lips. I watched her struggle to keep silent, her lips tightening as if to keep it all from bursting out. And I tried to keep myself from laughing.

"Let it out, Alice." I said.

Alice exploded.

"Okay, first of all, I realize that the woman has been through a terrible grievance, I was there, I know, but honestly if she loves the man why not marry him? Doesn't she, of all people deserve to be happy? I mean, what's more happy of an occasion than a wedding? And it's only been a few years what could possibly have happened in such a short amount of time to call off an engagement? And after all they've been through together! And I'm not trying to sound selfish, but it is _not_ easy to come up with the perfect ensemble for ten people! Twice!" She exhaled swiftly, a small crease set between her eyes.

I nodded in silent response.

"Well," I finally said, "we'll just have to find another occasion to get all gussied up."

I smiled brightly at her when she finally looked at me, rolling her eyes.

"There is always an occasion, Emma." She said, looking at me through her lashes.

"Besides, that cocktail dress would still look good on you…" she added, her plans for a full makeover already set in stone.

"Ha! I thought that was _so last season_." I laughed.

"Well, quite few. But it's timeless." She said musically, almost visibly bouncing with excitement. I could see the wheels turning in her head, and it scared me.

"A _cocktail _dress?" I asked incredulously.

"Don't fight it, Emma. It's already happened, " she said pointing to her temple, "and guess what? You love it."

I gawked at her with a look of complete disbelief, but if I knew anything, Alice was rarely wrong.

"Emma?" Alice asked, a slightly troubled look in her eyes. "Why do I see Rosalie trying to rip your head off?

Holes


	2. Chapter 7: Holes

7. Holes

Summer came, and with it, the time to travel. It wasn't unusual for the Cullens to come and go as they pleased, trekking to favored haunts or exploring wild territories untouched by man. It was unusual, however, for them to take trips as a whole. It used to be that now and again, they would take time away from each other. A few months here, a few years there. When decades are more akin to years, such time does not feel as taxing. But since the birth of our Nessie, not one of them wished to part from her for very long. No one wanted to miss a single moment. With that, I found myself in New Zealand, where it was just becoming winter, and the clouds that brought seasonal storms provided needed cover.

"I've got a cousin here." I said as we walked along the ridge of a mountain range closer to the northern coastline. Alice's face became stern and her head turned abruptly to face me.

"They're not going to recognize you are they?" she asked, her eyes growing larger with every word. "Dammit, Em! Why would you not bring up a minor detail such as 'I have living cousins where we're planning to travel and could possible see me and phone my family to say hey, guess who's not dead'?"

"They've never met me." I laughed, "The last time they were stateside was few weeks before I was born. So they wouldn't recognize me. We're fine, Alice."

She didn't find it as amusing.

"Oh my gosh!" she let out an exasperated sigh. "Emma Sophia Cullen, I am going to kill you one of these days!"

A small laugh escaped my lips. "No…. you'd miss me too much."

"That's besides the point!"

It was beautiful here. I had always wanted see it. My grandfather would make the trip every several years, his mother had been born here. I could remember a yellow sweater he had brought back for me; there were fuzzy lambs on it. With no need of sleep or rest, I took full advantage of all the islands had to offer. We surfed for days on end, swimming down through the reefs and exploring through a sunken Navy ship. The ocean life was bright and colorful and I found it all very fascinating, but could never get close enough. The fish would swim away whenever I had gotten too close.

We hunted on the southern island, which is mostly made of steep mountain ranges, and is almost entirely uninhabitable. Edward and Bella took Jake and Ness to see Tasmania while Emmett and Rosalie indulged in the adventurous offerings of bungee jumping and sky diving. Emmett had strongly argued his desires to do each without the safety of the bungee rope or parachute. Esme and Carlisle enjoyed learning about the culture and attended museums while Alice and Jasper roamed the islands together. In the end though, we would always come back to one another.

"Alice?" I asked tentatively. The same question had been swimming around in my mind, coming close to the surface now and again before dropping back down.

"Hmm?"

"Why doesn't Jasper like me?"

She stopped and viewed me with a mixture of confusion and curiosity.

"Why ever would you ask something like that?" she said.

"I just don't think he likes me…." I added. "He…I don't know. He never really talks to me and seems to keep a distance. I think I've offended him somehow."

She sighed and continued walking. "Em, he doesn't hate you. He just… needs to sort some things out for himself, that's all. You're the second person who's come into his life who's had very little trouble adjusting to our lifestyle. He's frustrated with himself. And a little embarrassed."

I had known a little of Jasper's past and that he had some trouble adjusting to the vegetarian diet, but I didn't think that my own adjustment had anything to do with it.

"I don't really have a choice," I said " I've mostly stayed clear of human contact. So there's not much for me to brag about."

"Emma, you're _just now barely coming out of the newborn phase, it should be the only thing on your mind. Even for a few decades afterwards, and look at you! We shouldn't be able to take you anywhere! Bella had such an easy time adjusting, and then here you come along…. His pride's hurt that's all." she explained._

"_I don't mean to bother him." I said quietly._

"_I know you don't, but he's a big boy and he's been on his way to working this out for some time now. Don't worry about him." she said. "He is quite fond of you, you know. You were in the military, he can identify with that. And I think he finds it approving as well."_

"_Really?" I asked._

"_Mmmhmm. Just give him some time, he'll come around."_

"_Hmm, well time is what I have." I said._

"_Shall we?" she asked, her voice ringing musically. Alice turned and dove from the cliff with perfect form, completing a rather complicated combination of twists and summersaults with a grace that Greg Louganis would be envious of. She landed at the base of the waterfall and disappeared below the churning water._

"_Absolutely." I said. In one bound, I moved forward and launched myself from the edge of the rock, leaping high into the air and leaning back into a dive, straight to the center of the pool below. _

_Our return home was met with summer storms and Charlie's welcoming arms. _

"_Have you gotten taller?" He asked as he picked up Renesmee in a bear hug._

"_No, grandpa." she giggled._

"_Hmm, my eyesight must be going." He replied cheekily._

_He spent the after noon with us, relaying the happenings of Forks in our two month absence, and we recounted details of our trip. Details that wouldn't give him a coronary that is. Long after the sun had dipped below the horizon, Charlie's head leaned back with a massive yawn. A look at his watch told him it was passed ten, and he slowly lifted himself to his feet giving his daughter and grandchild warm hugs before biding us goodnight. _

"_It's your bed time as well." Edward said, putting an arm over Renesmee's shoulders._

"_I'm not that tired." she yawned._

"_Mmm hmm…Come on." he said._

_Bella followed them out to their cottage, never wanting to miss tucking her in. Undoubtedly, Jake would be there soon as well, to curl up below her window and fall asleep. Charlie watched as they went, exhaustion warring with a desire to stay longer. He didn't know the exact details of what we were, and he didn't want to know. But I could see it in his eyes, in the way his shoulders slumped at that moment and the way his feet seemed reluctant to carry him back to his car outside. I could see that Charlie could feel a change coming, that he could sense the inevitable. Carlisle looked ten years younger than he was supposed to be. And with each passing year, suspicion would grow. The good people of Forks, Washington would naturally notice that The Cullens did not seem to age. We were stretching it thin, attempting to stay here for as long as possible, for Charlie's sake, for ours. This had become such a beloved residence for the Cullens, for so many reasons. But soon enough the time would come when we would be forced to move on. And Charlie knew it. _

_The next day brought a thunderstorm, as Alice had told me there would be. Overhead, dark clouds churned and an electrical hum could be felt, crackling in the air. The warm summer breeze grew into whipping gusts and lightning flashed in the sky. I sent an appreciative look Alice's way and started out for the clearing to the east, newly purchased rugby ball in hand. _

_With a loud boom, Edward slammed into me, knocking us to the ground. As we fell, I twisted to find Jasper behind me. I lunged and let the ball roll off my finger tips as I passed it along to him. He streaked forward as I came crashing down, and agilely swayed passed Emmett's grasping hands and Carlisle's diving tackle, only to be brought down by Alice. I wasn't sure if he let her. He pushed the ball behind him to Bella's awaiting hands and held Alice by the ankle, so that she could not follow. Edward tore after her, making up the ground between them and dodging Rosalie's block, only to meet his wife standing at the edge of the field, a pleased grin on her face._

_The ball was handed off to Renesmee, and she began to race forward, Jasper and Jacob leading the way. _

"_Go Ness! Go!" Esme called out._

_No one intended to tackle her, so they focused on her defenders instead. I flew onto Jake's right side, catching him by the knees and rolling away with him. Jasper pushed Carlisle back and continued forward as Emmett ran behind Nessie. Rosalie came within Jasper's grasp and he held her off as Emmett scooped Renesmee in his arms and ran with her, stiff arming Edward as he went. I laughed out loud as they made their way down field. Renesmee had the ball tightly wrapped in both arms, and Em had her tucked securely in both of his. The image was priceless and everyone had to laugh at the absurdity of it all. When they reached the end of the clearing, Emmett let out a booming whoop almost as loud as the thunder itself. Renesmee giggled and touched his face with the palm of her open hand. He looked down into her eyes and laughed with her. There, standing with his beloved niece cradled so safely in his arms, Emmett smiled softly and laughed at there private joke. The image was enough to steal the breath from my lungs. _

_I was no longer aware of my surroundings, or even my own body. My knees gave and I blindly slumped to the muddy field beneath me. Seeing only a life long gone, a life not lived, mirrored with the sight before me. Peering into a world where I could not exist, seeing the life I had planned for, a life I had dreamt of. For a brief moment, I was standing in this very meadow, with sun occasionally obscured by billowing clouds that drifted lazily across the sky. A young boy, maybe eight years of age, ran ahead of me. His dark brown hair shone with strands of auburn when the sunlight caught it at the right angles. His light brown eyes alight with adventure as a tall, handsome man walked toward him, a back pack slung over one shoulder and a young girl sitting atop both. Her brown hair falling in loose curls where they escaped her ponytail. Her cheeks rouged against her fair skin as it was met with a crisp breeze. Her grayish blue eyes beaming as she giggled and implored her father to chase after her older brother. The man was maybe a few inches taller than me, I would have come up to the level of his lips. His eyes were a deep sapphire blue and when he smiled, his lips pulled up into a shy, content smile, setting deep dimples into either side of his mouth…._

_In a distant part of my mind, I wondered if an immobile, unchanging heart could break. If it could wither away and crumble to dust. The numbness in my limbs gave way to a hollow ache that resonated in my chest and seeped throughout the rest of me. I felt sick. I couldn't feel my legs as I stood. I couldn't feel the mud squish between my fingers as I braced myself. I couldn't draw air into my lungs or hear the voices around me. I couldn't feel the rain that had begun to fall in large drops or the hail that accompanied it. I couldn't register the sight of the forest in front of me, only blindly walk forward; not knowing where I was going, only that I was moving away. _

_Air came in large, shuddering gasps as I moved further and faster. I ran, and didn't stop until I came to a sheer vertical rock face at the base of a mountain. I could have climbed it easily, it would have taken only moments to scale the flat granite surface, with no effort what so ever. But I felt neither the strength nor the will to do so. I simply fell against it, allowing my body to slide down, falling limply to the ground. The shallow, shuddering breaths grew to deep sobs and my eyes closed as my face contorted against the swelling wave of pain that crashed over me. When it did, I could feel something in my chest unhinge with a small clink._

_It was Bella who found me there. I didn't have to look to see it was her. I heard her walk slowly toward me and hesitate before sitting beside me and wrapping her arms gently around my shoulders and head. We sat there a long time. She said nothing, just simply held me as wave after wave ebbed and crashed over me._


	3. Chapter 8: Misunderstandings

8. Misunderstandings

No one questioned my abrupt departure that day in the field. No one wondered aloud or approached me, seeking an explanation. And I was grateful for it. It was not something I cared to discuss. It was not something I could discuss. It was not as though none of them would understand, only that I had no way of explaining. I couldn't fathom the words. Bella had not asked me for the reasons of the state she had found me in. She had not inquired as to the cause of it. Perhaps she felt that if I had wanted her to know, I would talk about it. Regardless, she viewed me with a supportive, understanding look. Alice would see me running from time to time, but did not ask why. They let me go, to have time to myself, to have the distance I needed.

Periodically, the waves of pain I had felt that day would return. Building and building until they would crest and come tumbling down on me all over again. When they did, when I could feel it all reaching its peak, I would escape to some random place, far from their sensitive ears. I would run until I felt myself break. Until the wave buckled my knees and brought me down with it. Until I would fall, crumpling to the ground. After, I would feel numb. The intensity of it all would fry my nerves beyond the point of exhaustion, beyond the point if feeling. And it would be that way for a while. I would live throughout days, functioning and reacting to the world around me, but numb. After some time, the wave would swell again. Each time with more intensity than the last.

It had not escaped Esme's attention. And she would place a hand on my shoulder as she passed, or glance at me with a look of longing and sadness when she thought I wouldn't notice. Jasper could feel the same hollow questions that stirred inside me, and undoubtedly Edward could at least hear the tenor of my wordless thoughts, but still no one pressed me. No one except Emmett.

"What's with you lately?" he finally asked one day.

It had seemed like a silent understanding amongst the family, an unspoken agreement to allow me time alone with my thoughts. To let me be, while waiting patiently and supportively on the sidelines. But Emmett's curiosity and upbeat nature didn't hold his questions for long.

"Nothing." I replied with a shrug of my shoulders.

"Nothing my ass. You've been moping around here like your puppy died or something" he accused.

"It's nothing, Emmett." I said, with a failing attempt to sound nonchalant.

He looked at me with a mixture of concern and irritation as we walked. I couldn't be sure which was the more dominant. Emmett didn't dwell on things. It simply wasn't in his nature to allow himself to become dragged down by worries or troubles. And he could not stand to see anyone allow themselves to.

"Well, whatever it is that has your panties in a twist, you could tell me." he offered. His light, golden topaz eyes met mine, and I could see concern winning out. This wasn't something I had expected from him. But as 'less than sensitive' as Emmett seemed at times, he was fiercely protective of his family, and truly concerned of their well being. What a teddy bear.

"Thanks, Emmett." I said quietly.

He grinned and punched me in the shoulder with enough force to knock me off balance.

"Any time."

His large arm came up and wrapped around my shoulders. Comforted and resolved, I put mine around his waist.

"C'mon." He said, and raced forward. He walked up to a large pine and lunged into it, wrapping his massive arms around it, hugging around it's base and yanking it from its roots as he went.

With the large tree rested easily on his shoulder he turned back to me, the further end of the tree colliding with others and bowing in the center.

"Come on, it's fun! It'll take your mind off things!" He said, before removing the large pine from his shoulder and snapping it in half as he brought it crashing to the ground.

I moved closer to the one in front of me and viewed it calculatingly, sizing it up. I could feel a strength bubbling up in me like excitement. I hadn't really used any of the "newborn" strength they all told me I would be endowed with in my first year. I had denied Emmett countless arm wrestling matches, and only used a small amount during playful moments. I hadn't wanted to test it out on any of them, fearing I would accidentally break them. It was well passed a year now though, but I felt it. Pulsing though me, flowing through my shoulder and down my arm as my fingers curled into a fist. It coursed though my veins and bled into tightening muscles. In one powerful movement, I wrenched back my arm and drove my fist through the thick trunk, crashing through it until my arm passed completely though its width and my fist came out the other side. With very little effort at all, I pulled my arm inward and blasted out the right side of the tree's base. A loud groan sounded as splinters and chunks were sent flying. Above, needles shook free and fell as the massive tree swayed. It began to creek and pop and with a loud crack, the remaining side of the trunk snapped and it toppled over.

"Timber!" Emmett shouted with a laugh.

The massive pine came crashing down, bouncing as it met the ground, kicking up dust and decaying foliage as it settled.

"Damn, muscles." Emmett sounded somewhere in the cloud of debris, "You've been holding out on us!"

Some time passed. The numbness began to sway and give to a growing wave again. But I remained apart of the world. I was present in my family's lives throughout, and kept my focus in the here and now. Bella and I had become closer. There seemed to be connection that had remained to be seen before. I wondered if Edward had told her. If he had answered her silent questions about me. Whatever the reason, Bella understood me and did not pry.

The wave had not yet reached a particular intensity when I had gone for a walk one afternoon, but thoughts that swam around in my head were enough to make me want to walk, uninhibited in the sunlight. I went to the small meadow to the east of the house, above the cloud bank. When I came to the edge of the clearing I paused for a moment, watching the sun stream down through sporadic clouds and dance in the swaying grass. It had grown to knee-high length, choking out the wild flowers that grew now closer to the center of the opening. I stepped out slowly, watching as the light caught my skin. It shimmered and danced off of it, sending small flares of reflection. My eyes closed as a warm breeze wound its way through my hair and gently tugged at my clothes. I could feel it glide smoothly over my skin and caress my form as it swirled about. I lifted my face, eyes still closed and felt the warmth of the sun as it touched my features. I opened my eyes to find that the sun did not hurt them. Like a distant echo, a murky, clouded memory came to me. I had attempted to look at a particularly beautiful sunset once, but the light obstructed the view, and kept me from appreciating it for more than a few fractions of a second at a time. I had wonder if in Heaven, you could look into the sun without pain. If you could stare at every beautiful sky without ever having to look away….

I looked at it now, with out blinking, without shielding my eyes with my hand, I looked straight into the sun. I stood there a long time, before returning my gaze to the meadow around me. I could see them again, the family I would have had. I could see them walking ahead of me. I could see my beautiful husband and our beautiful children. I had wanted this. I had dreamt of taking them hiking, teaching them to fish. I had wanted to bring them to places like this, to share it with them. I still wanted that, but it wasn't to be. Marc would not stand here with me, our beautiful children would not play in this meadow. I would never have the handsome son I saw before me. I would never have the beautiful daughter that looked so much like me. My body was frozen in the state it had been on that beautiful day in Kodiak. It would not produce children now.

I didn't need the wave to come crashing down on me. The finality of this truth brought a pain that flooded rather ebb. It poured from deep within me and slowly began to fill every crevice. The hollow ache in my chest throbbed. My hand came up to rest over where my heart was. I pressed it there, trying to feel it. Trying in vain to feel where it would be, but there was no pulse to guide me. Only the sense of something missing.

I walked back toward the house, choosing to go slowly as I moved through the haze of thoughts that clouded my vision. When I came to the river, I just kept going. I waded slowly through the water, still lost in my own mind. When I reached the other side, I vaguely noticed that the sun must have been setting, for the temperature had dropped slightly. I didn't notice the large sapling that was hurling in my direction, however. It struck me in the upper half of my chest and neck, catching the left side of my face and slamming me to the ground.

Rosalie was charging toward me. I moved the sapling from atop of me, confused by the strange, wild fury in her eyes.

"Rose?" I asked bewildered, but I was cut short.

Her lips curled and slid over her teeth as she gained speed. She lunged.

"Bitch!" she screamed as her body knocked into mine. The force of it drove me deep into the damp earth.

Her hands were around my throat. The wild fury raged in her eyes and touched every feature on her face as her fingers constricted, looking to crush what they held. I didn't understand what was happening. Rosalie had never shown much of a preference for me, but she never expressed outright hatred. I couldn't understand what would have provoked such an action from her. I couldn't think of what would cause the anger that was pouring out of her and driving her grip tighter around my neck. Her fingers curled in to find purchase, to rip my throat out. I didn't understand it, but I wasn't going to let it happen. The instinct to survive overruled the need for understanding.

My legs came up and wrapped around her head. I pulled down with as much strength as necessary and her hands lost their hold. I grabbed her around her waist and threw her away from me. She twisted in the air to land sprightly on her feet, facing me, and charged again. A deep growl snarled from her chest as she collided into me once again. The impact sounded like boulders crashing together. The sound of it cracked through the air and bounced on the trees and rocks around us. Her arms wrapped around my waist as mine did hers. Again, I ripped her away from me.

"Rose!" I shouted as her body crashed through a couple of trees, severing them in half.

She picked up one of the top halves of the tree she had demolished and flung it at me. My hands automatically flew out in front of me. The wood splintered on contact, sending debris in every direction.

"Rosalie!" I heard someone shout.

"No, stay out of it!" someone else said.

Rosalie charged again. My mind raced to think of a solution, to find a way to resolve whatever had started this. I didn't want to hurt her. I didn't want her to hurt me.

She came at me again, but I pushed her away. I was stronger than she was, but she was a more experienced fighter. She came from behind me. She was on my back, her hands around my jaw, her arms jerked upward.

"No!" someone roared.

It all happened very quickly, but in that moment, time nearly stopped. It was like watching a movie play out in slow motion. I could feel her knees dig into my shoulders as she wrenched her hands upward. I could see Esme running toward us. Emmett holding Jasper back. And Jacob rushing Nessie back into the house, her eyes were wide with shock and disbelief. Carlisle's eyes were wide as they would be with adrenaline as he faced us, his hand on Edwards chest behind him. Rosalie's fingers curled.

Time caught up. My hands reached up and gripped her wrists, I pulled her hands down and pulled her from my back. With her wrists still tightly bound in my fingers, I slammed her down in front of me. Still holding her wrists, I jumped on top of her. I pinned her arms and legs with my own and held her there.

"Spineless hussy!" she roared. Her teeth clenched tightly together, venom spitting between them.

Alice found me then. Her gentle hands formed around my shoulders, easing me upward. But I didn't want to let loose of Rose. It was safer with her held down, I was stronger than the others, I could keep her here. But Emmett came then. He could hold her in a way that I couldn't. I was physically just as strong, yes, but he had a different hold over her. At his touch, her body softened ever so slightly. His hands replaced mine, and as I came to stand with Alice, his arms gently wound around her waist, pulling her toward him. It didn't look like he was restraining her at all, though he was.

"Unbelievable little bitch of a whore!" she spat.

"Rose!" Carlisle shouted. "What on earth has come over you?"

Her eyes burned with a fierce rage, never leaving mine and her hands gripped Emmett's arms where they held her waist.

"Little slut, I know what you've been thinking!" she shouted at me.

"Rose." Carlisle said again, calmer this time. He moved between us and tried to hold her gaze. "What is this about?" he asked gently.

Rosalie seethed, seeing passed him, before finally meeting his eyes.

"Stay out of this, Carlisle. That bitch should never have come here, she shouldn't be here!"

"Rosalie, what has Emma ever done but kindness to this family? To you?" Carlisle was lost, his hands came up to hold Rose's face as he looked into her eyes. A strong mixture of concern and paternal authority in his.

She looked at him again, anger setting a tense line in her lips.

" She's a home wrecker is what she is! She's been trying to seduce my husband!" she seethed.

"What?" Emmett's eye brows knitted together in utter confusion, and as did the rest of the family's.

"Rosalie, what the _hell_ are you talking about?" Alice said, moving from beside me to get a clear view of her sister.

"Edward said it, she's after him. She wants to steal him from me. Has little fantasies of being married to him!" The words ripped viciously from her mouth.

"I said no such thing!" Edward exclaimed. He stared wide eyed at her before realization dawned on his face. "Eaves dropping never gives you the truth, Rose. You should know better."

"What, what do mean?" Esme sounded behind me. I hadn't notice her standing there. Her hands came to rest protectively on my shoulders.

"I had been having a _private conversation with Bella." he said, irritation heavy in his voice._

_He sent an apologetic look my way and continued. _

"_Bella was concerned for Emma, and I confided in her what I had seen in Emma's thoughts. Rosalie is mistaken, Emma has no such intentions." he explained._

_Shock coursed through my body, I did not hold it against Edward. He could not help his gift, he could not block every thought, every voice, every image. And undoubtedly, concern for his sister would lead him to view what had troubled me so deeply. Undoubtedly he would confide in his wife to ease her concerns and offer some explanation. _

"_I heard you say it!" Rose shouted, unmoved. " I heard you say she wanted Emmett!"_

"_She wants someone like Emmett," he clarified. "Not him specifically."_

_Every set of eyes turned to look at me then. One of Emmett's eye brows curved upward. It was beyond uncomfortable. Confused and shocked eyes stared back into mine without further explanation, creating a partially formed truth in their minds._

"_Whore!" Rosalie roared._

"_Rose!" Bella shouted._

"_Rosalie," I began._

"_Don't you dare speak to me!" she cut me off._

"_I would never…" _

"_I'll kill you where you stand, I swear it." she spat._

_I moved around Carlisle to look her in the eye, Esme's fingers hesitated on my shoulders, not sure if this was safe._

"_I would never." I said, with every ounce of fervor._

"_Lying cow…" she breathed._

"_His name is Marcus Cavanaugh." I said. The name catching in my throat. "But he prefers to be called Marc. He will be 26 this year, he was born just outside of Baltimore, Maryland. He has a grandmother named Emma, and another named Madeline and they live on opposite ends of the country. He has a brother, but I don't know if he's older or younger and I don't know if he has any other siblings. He's kind and hardworking. He's shy and doesn't say much, but he's strong and intelligent. He has the deepest blue eyes, and dark brown hair that is slightly wavy when he lets it grow out. I saw him on the very first day I arrived in Kodiak. I saw him and wanted to know more about him. I wanted to know everything there was to know of him. But we worked together, and if we were to become anything beyond associates it would have ruined his career and ended mine. I knew him exactly three months the day my life was taken away from me. Three months before I never saw him again." _

_The words fell from my mouth in a torrent. I told her everything I could about him, everything I had learned in brief conversations, chaste glances and distant observations. Every minute detail and memory fell from my lips._

"_He kind of looks like him, your Emmett. But he isn't. Not by a long shot. I don't know what he thought of me. He seemed to become just as befuddled as I did when we spoke to each other, just as nervous whenever we locked eyes…. And conversation flowed so effortlessly between us." I continued._

_Rosalie still leaned against Emmett's hold, her eyes still burned._

"_But whatever would have been is lost. Whatever possible future I could have had with him, I'll never know." I broke her gaze. I couldn't look at any of them now. "And whatever family we would have made, whatever life we would have built, that's gone now."_

_My eyes were downcast. Seeing passed the trampled mud below my feet._

"_We'll never grow old together," my throat tightened, and felt as though a lump were growing in it, "I'll never watch our children grow. I'll never know that life."_

_My words hung in the air, met with absolute silence. I hadn't realized I had been shaking until Esme's hand came to rest on my back. I didn't look at her. I didn't look at any of them. I felt Alice's hand, and Carlisle's. Jasper came to stand silently at his wife's side and Edward stood solemnly in front of me, knowing everything already. Esme's hand came under my chin, pulling my face up. Her eyes held a sadness beyond anything I could think of at the moment and with a sigh, she pulled me into her arms._

_Rosalie simply stood against Emmett, her mouth agape as his arms dropped from around her waist. The fire in her eyes had been snuffed out and left with a hollow, blank stare. Without seeing, she turned and walked away. And Emmett followed._


	4. Chapter 9 Apologies

9. Apologies

"I'm sorry," Alice said "I didn't know."

"It's okay…. I didn't tell anyone. Well, Edward, but just to clear up any misunderstandings… not all misunderstandings apparently." I replied.

We were sitting on the same tree bow I had once consoled Alice on. It was strange how some things repeated themselves throughout life. Little differences separating them, but oddly similar. Alice would look at me now and again, a question or comforting word behind her lips, but never moving passed them. She was determining what would be best to ask, what would be best to say.

"Did you love him?" she asked quietly.

Now I was hard pressed to formulate a worthy answer. There were so many possible ways of wording it, and yet so few. At the time, I would have said it had been too soon to know such a thing. I hadn't known him well enough for that. There were things from my old life that seemed to fall through the cracks as time progressed in this life. I could feel them slide from my memory and dissolve, slipping into the ether. But other things remained. Some broken or vague, some only feelings or senses. Some images or sounds. Brief snippets of time, from not so long ago. There were those that burned brightly. Images and sounds that clung to relevance. Feelings and scents that imbedded themselves in me. My mother's face, the way my father always smelled of sweet sweat and chewing tobacco.

In that life, I had been so serious in regards to love, it wasn't something to be taken lightly. It was something rare, and to be respected. It wasn't infatuations or promiscuous encounters. It was solid and deep, a bond that existed on the soul level. A flexible weld that twisted and turned to accommodate. To endure all. Love was trust.

It all mulled around inside me, those things that remained. One by one, every truth I had known presented itself, laying before me as evidence.

"Yes." I said, my voice low, but clear. "I always will."

Again, Alice's words were met with hesitance, unsure if she should voice her thoughts.

"Emma….If you wished… I could watch out for him." She said quietly, eyeing me with uncertainty. "I could follow his decisions…I could tell you how he's doing."

My brain simply fell blank. As if it too were speechless. I had heard her clearly, and understood her meaning. But I could not actively think about it. Could I be able to accept her offer? Did I want such knowledge? My brain felt as though it were cased in molasses. What would it mean for me if I accepted? If I declined? I replied to her with the only thing I could honestly say.

"I don't know." I didn't. If I said yes, If she were to look for him, if I were to know, what would that mean for me? I wasn't sure if that were the best thing. A part of me screamed inside, astonished that I would hesitate to accept her offer, that I had never approached her with the idea. But another countered with it's solemn silence. If I did say yes, if I did know, I would never stop. I would hang on every path he took. Following vicariously, watching as he went thorough life. Even when that path eventually lead him to someone beautiful. A lovely woman just as kind and deserving of happiness as he was. I would be happy knowing his joy, no matter the amount of pain or jealousy it would cause me.

But the day would come when Alice wouldn't be able to follow him, when I could no longer be invisibly at his side. The time would come only too soon when he would take a path I would not be allowed to follow down. And what then? Was it better to immerse myself in his life, hidden in the shadows of Alice's visions? Was it better to know rather than not? All at once, I wanted to say yes to her, and I wanted to say no. I wanted to know every passing thought, every decision, every smile, every laugh, every nightmare, every loss and every victory. But I wondered if it was what was best for all involved. If it was best that I refused. It was true, with more certainty than anything, that he would be in every waking thought for the rest of my existence. But our fates were separated, and whatever paths he traveled, mine would never intertwine. Perhaps it should remain that way entirely. Perhaps I should not know, and in whatever way possible, move on. To release him from me, and in leaving him to live out his own existence, allow myself to live mine.

I honestly didn't know. She would, without question, if asked her to. She would tell me all she could, about Marc. About my parents. About brothers that had surely moved on from where I had known them, all moving forward in the world. To them, I was gone. I had disappeared somewhere along the way. Perhaps they thought I watched over them from Heaven. And maybe, in a way they would be right. I wondered then, if they still spoke to me. Talking to the open air, hoping I would be listening and replying in a way they could not hear.

"But thank you, Alice." I said, my voice had become more gruff.

"Of course." she replied sweetly, a tinge of sadness forming around the words as she spoke them.

In the back of my mind, beyond the haze and mire that confounded and held me, I knew she would anyway.

Rosalie and Emmett did not return immediately. But when they did, there was again the unspoken understanding between us all. There were no explanations or words that needed be spoken. Rosalie kept her distance from me, but it seemed it was more for her own sake than mine. I did not feel that she avoided me out of spite or hatred. I felt no animosity or bitterness, but still, she held herself away. Some time passed and I made a point to be present in every moment. I involved myself in my family's lives, partaking in their enjoyments and likes; not allowing myself to shrink away from them and become secluded. A recluse hidden away in my own mind.

Nessie grew. We celebrated her fifth birthday, though she could easily have passed for twelve. Esme baked a cake that looked like would have been delicious. It certainly was impressive. For appearances sake, but mostly for my niece, I managed a small piece. It was all I could do, not because it smelled confusingly revolting despite how lovely it appeared, but because it was devoured almost entirely between Jake, Seth and Charlie. Emmett also managed a piece and Edward swallowed a bit of icing he had removed from his daughter's piece with his finger. Appearances. But as with mine, I guessed that they had withstood the cake out of love of Renesmee, out of celebrating her miraculous existence rather than the mere fact Charlie was present.

After ten minutes of the yellow cake and butter cream icing sitting uncomfortably along the bottom of my stomach however, I excused myself politely. It was slightly disturbing, but oddly amusing as I leaned over behind a large hemlock and choked it up. It was disgusting, as to be expected. But quite differently from moments such as this in my human life, it did not come out all at once with liquid to conveniently usher out the unwanted substances. Now it came out dry as it was when I had consumed it. Parts of it caught along the way and I had to cough and hack to dislodge them and spit them out. When I returned to the house, Emmett shot a smug look of superiority at me, whispering that he could "handle his." Several minutes later however, he too disappeared to find a tree of his own.

We watched as Renesmee opened her presents. The absurdity and lavishness of several of them lost on those that had purchased them. As Nessie held up a small dark leather strap, a shiny, sleek looking key dangled from it.

_Bet that didn't say ages three and up on the box. _I thought with a pointed look at Edward. He simply shrugged, a bemused smile playing on the corners of his lips. He wanted to teach her how to drive. So naturally, he would buy her her very own vehicle. When I was around her age, well, the age she appeared, I had learned to drive in my grandfather's old pick up on the dusty old roads of his ranch.

Charlie's eye brows quirked, but before he could formulate a question in his own mind, Alice had presented Nessie with another box. The afternoon continued this way, and dragged on into the late evening. Seth excused himself around five, telling Charlie that he would see him at dinner. Renesmee was with Alice and Rose, modeling the many dresses they had acquired for her while Jacob and Edward discussed the Audi model he had chosen for her.

When night came, Edward and Bella took Renesmee to their cottage to put her to bed. We gave her hugs, bidding her goodnight, and a happy birthday once more. When I bent down to hold her, she smiled and brought her hand to my face. At her touch, my body stiffened and I gasped. It wasn't something I had gotten used to.

A flutter of colors and wordless thoughts flickered softly behind my eyes. She thought of the present I had gotten her and a silent smile. She thanked me. Her small hand slowly dropped from my cheek and my vision returned to see her light brown eyes and happy smile.

"Goodnight, Auntie Emma." she said.

"Goodnight, Ness." I smiled.

They left out the back door, Renesemee playing with the ring that hung from a delicate chain around her neck. It was the only thing of mine I could give her. Her hands were too small to wear it now, but I felt it necessary to pass down something, an heirloom be handed down through generations.

"It was my mother's." I had told her. "She had given it to me, and now I'm giving it to you."

Long after they had gone, I went for a walk alone through the forest. The sky was clear tonight and the stars shone and winked amongst the moon light. I looked up at them as I went, watching them glow so far above the tops of the pines. When I came to the meadow, I laid in the tall grass and watched until they disappeared, slowly fading into the oncoming morning light. There were soft footsteps that followed my path through the forest and came to rest at the edge of the grass.

"Emma?" Rosalie called.

I sat up to see her. She stood at the edge of the meadow, staring at her hands as she slowly rotated the wedding band around her third finger.

"I am sorry," she said, her eyes downcast, "for the way I've behaved."

She didn't look up as I came to my feet. She stayed where she was, turning over her ring as her eyebrows knitted together and her lips pursed. I wasn't sure what to say.

"That's alright." I said quietly.

"No, it isn't." she said suddenly, her eyes flashing to mine. "I acted foolishly, and for that I apologize." she said with a nod.

She looked away from me, her eyes tightening as she again focused on her ring.

"Thank you." I breathed.

The silence hung uncomfortably between us and seemed to last too long. The sun had began to touch the ridgeline of the mountains to the east, silhouetting them against a brightening blue.

"Did that ring really belong to your mother?" she asked.

"Yes." I replied, confused as to why she would think I had lied.

Rosalie gave a small nod. "Why did you give it to her?" her voice was strained and harsh.

"Because I don't have a daughter of my own to give it to." I said, my voice tightening. I could feel a familiar wave begin to ebb inside me.

Her eyes met mine then, they were wide and deep as they stared back, completely open and unabashed. She took in a small breath and nodded again.

"This Marcus guy, he was something special to you?" she asked.

This time I nodded. The sudden mention of his name and oddly personal quasi-conversation I found myself having made it difficult to form very many words.

Rosalie's eyes dropped from mine, returning to the ground in front of her.

"I can sympathize." she whispered. "I know what it's like, wanting something you can't have."

She looked passed me to rising morning sun and closed her hands delicately around her ring.

"Emma, I will never have children with Emmett. I could never provide him with a son or daughter to carry on his name." There was a bitterness in her eyes that gave way to grief. " But I at least have him, and I am grateful for that."

Her eyes came to mine again. The sun broke over the horizon, casting her in brilliant light that reflected and shimmered off her face and hands.

"I am truly sorry for your situation." she continued. "And I'm sorry if I've hurt you."

And I knew that she meant it. I could see the effort it took for Rosalie to come here, to openly admit her mistake and attempt to convey her understanding. So I nodded again. There was nothing I could say to her then.

"She'll be up soon." Rosalie said. And I knew whom she was speaking of. "And I suppose, I could tolerate it if she had two favorite aunts…."

A small laugh escaped me, to which she looked up. "Three." I said.

A small smile touched her face. "She a daughter to us all, you know. In every possible way."

"I know." I said quietly.

It was with that that I came to understand Rosalie a little better. The way she adored our Nessie, how she doted on her and watched cautiously as Emmett played with her. The motherly look in her eye whenever she spoke of her. How long had she lived with this? In the several decades of her existence, Rosalie had also ached for the children she would never have. Around us, the birds were stirring and the sun climbed higher into the brightening clear sky, casting the tall grass and deep colors of the wild flowers in fresh light.

"She's going to need someone maintain the upkeep on that car of hers." I said. "And as good a mechanic as Jacob is…."

She smiled at that, knowing it was an area she was far more superior in than me, and that Renesmee would always need her there.

"Come on." I said with a tilt of my head in the direction of the cottage.

We walked silently through the forest, the light that shone through the trees falling on our skin and illuminating the shade below. We walked toward the one thing we would probably every find common ground on, and in that found a small, unspoken bond. As we came closer, we could hear movement in the small home. Renesmee turned over in her sleep, softly exhaling a deep breath and Rosalie and I smiled.

**A/N: Yes, Rosalie is selfish, always making everything about her. But her heart is in the right place. Reviews are welcome ****J**


	5. Chapter 10 Visions

**I can see myself with you later in life**

**I can see you as my husband, and me as your wife**

**For brief moments, I can imagine a scene**

**Flickering visions of ordinary moments yet to be**

**For the first time, I don't know how or if it will work,**

**But I want to see**

**I want to know what becomes of "us" and what "we" could mean**

**I have no clue where we'll end up**

**But I want to try**

**To see if we'll have ordinary moments**

**Such as holding hands or looking at the sky**

**For the first time, I don't know how I feel**

**I don't know what the future holds**

**But I could find it with you**

**For the first time I don't know what I want**

**But I can imagine the scene**

**For a brief moment a vision flickers**

**Of an ordinary moment between you and me**

10. Visions

I laughed out loud at the face Jacob was making. Renesmee had discovered make up.

"I think this shade would really bring out your eyes, Jake." I said, holding up a compact of dusty copper eye shadow.

"Ooo! Yes!" Alice agreed with enthusiastic squeals. She took the small container from me and turned back to him.

Jacob's eyes narrowed into a death glare and I fell back with laughter. His massive form sat pouting at the large vanity in Alice's room.

"Close one eye, Jake!" she demanded. His glare left me and flashed pointedly at her, his lips sticking out in defiance. But his eyes softened suddenly and his shoulders relaxed as Renesmee's hand brushed along the tips of his hair, her palm coming to rest on his cheek. His bottom lip pulled in from its pout and into a small smile as she began playing with his hair, deciding what to do with it.

Alice bustled around Jacob's head, her eye's flicking over to me every two seconds, full of criticism as I applied mascara to Renesmee's eyelashes.

"All you have to do is hold it close and blink." I explained. She closed her eyes a few times as I held the small comb. Steadily, more and more of the thick black mascara clung to her lashes, binding them together in even rows.

"Nice." I laughed. "Now you try the other."

She took the brush from me and turned to face herself in the mirror, holding it just under her left top lashes and blinked.

"You look beautiful, Ness." Bella said, coming to stand behind her. " Nice Jake!" she said, appraising him as Alice smoothed and pulled his dark hair back so that it was slicked down like something from and old Carey Grant movie.

"Mmm hmm." he hummed sarcastically, but a genuine smile lit his eyes.

Alice's hands slowed and hesitated for a second, her eyes had focused on something far away. Her face went blank, like she was lost in thought and her lips parted slightly. Then, with a small intake of breath, she brought herself back to the present and resumed smoothing Jacob's hair.

"Em, come on!" Emmett shouted up the stairs. "Jazz and I are gonna go have a foot race, let's go."

I smiled and got up to leave, planting a quick kiss on Renesmee's head as I went. "I'll be back." I said to them.

"Avoid civilization," Alice said as I walked to the door. "they don't plan on stopping until they reach the Canadian border."

I smiled again and laughed to myself. As I reached the threshold I turned to glance back at Alice, her eyes had followed me in the mirror. Her eyebrows were furrowed with worry, but upon meeting my eyes, they fell into a relaxed smile.

Jasper was waiting for me at the door, my guess was that Emmett had already started.

"We're gonna have to play a little catch-up." He said, a grin playing on the corners of his mouth.

"I'd figured." I said as he pulled the door closed behind us. "Shall we?"

Jasper's grin became more pronounced and we shot forward.

"Cheater!" I shouted, and Emmett's laughter could be heard far ahead of us.

That night I returned to my favorite haunt, stretching out in the tall grass as it swayed gently in the warm breeze and stared at the bright stars. The light wind wound around all it touched, and blew gently across my open palm, lacing between my fingers. I held my hand out like that for what must have been hours, just letting the breeze run through. I would think of him every time I came here. Away from everything and everyone else, I could think of just him. If I closed my eyes, I could imagine him there. I could feel his form lying next to mine, watching the stars with me. I could imagine talking with him. Just simply talking, about whatever floated through our minds.

I turned my eyes away from the glowing constellations to look beside me, knowing I'd see only wild grass and flowers. But I could still feel him. I could still sense him there, looking at the empty space beside me. As if he were somehow, in some small way present in the wind. The movement it caused replacing his, the sound of it moving through the grass like his gentle voice quietly speaking. It ran trough my hand again and I sighed heavily, closing my fingers around it, imagining his hand.

"We're going to have a rematch." Emmett's voice sounded behind me as I sat with Edward, he had been teaching me Greek.

"Don't be a sore loser, Emmett." I said, a cheeky smile growing on my face.

"I'm not a sore loser." Emmett retorted. Edward snorted.

"You already know we're going to have a rematch, why even ask." I said.

"I'm not asking, I'm telling you. You. Me. Race to the death." he said, pointing to me and himself as he spoke.

"Ha! To the death you say?" My eyebrows raised.

"Let's go." Emmett's eyes were wide with challenge.

"I'm learning right now, later though." I said.

"You've got all the time in the world to learn stuff! Come on!" he whined.

"Emmett, you've got all the time in the world for a race. Right now, we're focused on Greek." Edward cut in.

"It's not like she's going to forget any of it." he responded.

"Later. I promise you, later." I said with a laugh.

"She's going to beat you." Alice said matter of factly as she skipped down the stairs, passing us.

Emmett grumbled and stormed off and Edward laughed under his breath as we continued.

"Νίκησε τον για μένα, δεν στάθηκε σας?" he asked. Somewhere off in the distance I could hear a tree snap in half.

"Alright." I answered with a smile.

That afternoon, Edward and Bella had left to drive with Renesmee. Emmett and Rosalie had decided to spend the day in Seattle and Esme worked in her office while Carlisle was away at the hospital. It had been a couple of weeks since my last hunting trip, so when Jasper mentioned he was going with Alice, I joined them.

"Alice? Alice." I said again. Her eyes came back into focus and she continued walking forward. "Haha, you alright, Alice?"

"Perfectly fine." She smiled sweetly. But her completely innocent smile didn't match the slight concern that had briefly tinged her features moments before. She was hiding something.

"What is it?" I asked.

"Hmm? What?" Her voice was even and calm.

"What'd you see?" I pried.

"Oh, nothing." She laughed. "Emmett's scheming again."

"Ah," I said. "I see."

Jasper walked up from behind us and came to Alice's side, presenting her with a small beautiful flower. She smiled sweetly again and thanked him as I walked further ahead. I quickly scaled a small rock face to peek over the ridge, trying to get a better view of the scenery. I looked back quickly to see them loving holding hands, but there was some confusion and concern in Jasper's eyes as he viewed his wife. And there was a look in her eyes that clearly meant 'later.'

I turned away before they could notice my staring. Something seemed different, wrong. There was movement off to my right, when I took a closer look I could briefly make out the shape of a mountain lion before it disappeared amongst the trees. I left them there. Whatever it was, Alice was keeping something from me. In all actuality, it was probably none of my business, and it was rude of me for wanting to pry. But something was off. There was a growing suspicion in the back of my mind that stretched slowly, creeping forward into every thought. And a whisper of paranoia that whatever it was, did concern me.

When we returned, I followed behind them as we made our way into the house from the garage. They passed Edward in the kitchen as he and Bella cooked dinner for Nessie and Jacob. They were good at silent conversations, Edward and Alice. She never looked in his direction and he never looked up from the cutting board. His movements with the knife did not falter as he cut the raw chicken into cubes, but his face twitched ever so slightly. So many emotions flashed across his face, just under the surface. But he kept cutting, his face now a blank mask, as if it had been that way the whole time.

_Enough. _I thought. One of his eyebrows quirked slightly.

_What won't she tell me?_

He finished cutting and slid the pieces into a small metal bowl, swirling a bottle of olive oil above it while Bella hummed to herself quietly and sautéed onions in a small pan.

_Does it have anything to do with me?_

His eyes flashed to mine at that. It did. I flew passed him, making my way to the stairs.

"Emma!" he breathed, racing after me and catching me around the elbow as I reached the first step.

"What?" I whispered.

Panic was starting to creep through my stomach. What was so classified about this? What didn't they want me to know? What was so terrible that they felt I was better not knowing? Edward sighed and released my arm. I turned to face him fully, the panic now seeping into my chest.

"What is it?" I asked.

His face softened and he sighed again. "She'll tell you."

I stared into his eyes a moment longer, looking for some sign, any sign of trouble. But they were soft and unreadable. I turned to the stairs before me and made my way to Alice's room. She was sitting on the open widow sill, her hands folded in her lap as she stared out at the river. She didn't look up when I came in. My eyes stayed trained on her as I sat on the corner of their bed.

"Do you really want to know?" she asked, still looking out upon the meandering water.

My breath began coming in faster and deeper, and I concentrated on keeping it even. So many possibilities ran through my mind, so many scenarios that left the chance of my worst fears manifesting to hang in the air. My immediate thought was of my family. My brothers. What had happened to them.

"Is everyone ok?" I asked with a very low, monotone voice, it was all I could manage as I forced myself to remain calm. Beating back the panic that was beginning to rise in me. "Is anyone hurt?"

She remained very quiet, not moving from her position, and I nearly lost it.

"Is anyone…." My voice faltered and dropped out. "Has anyone died?"

The words were pushed from my mouth, gruff and strained. As if I struggled under the weight of them, and strained to lift them from my lips while holding a growing fear at bay.

Her eyes came to mine then, wide and alarmed. "No! Goodness no!" she exclaimed. "No, nothing like that, sweetheart."

I remained sitting, watching her as she relaxed and let out a breathy laugh, a mixture of incredible relief and shock washed over me, but I still couldn't move, and my eyes never left hers.

"I'm sorry, honey. I didn't mean to lead you to that conclusion." She laughed again.

"What is it, Alice?" I asked again, the shock and relief still coursing through me as my mind reeled. What was it then? What was so foreboding of a message, but less terrible than the death of a loved one, that she would keep from me?

Her face became serious again and she looked down at her hands.

"I asked you something not too long ago." She said quietly.

And I understood her then. It all washed over me again, everything. Every possible emotion ran through me as she looked at me through her lashes, her eyes solemn.

I couldn't breath.

"Is…" I choked. "Is he…."

At this point, had I any need for oxygen, the room would have begun to spin. The world in my peripheral vision would have began to blacken with tunnel vision, and my heart would have either pounded or stopped completely. Something had happened to him. The panic overthrew me then, every effort I had made to keep control over it fell away at her words and mine were lost before they could reach my lips. But no one had died, she had said. He was alive. He was still alive.

"Is he okay?" I breathed, barely able to force the words from my lips.

"Physically, he's fine." She said putting her hands up to reassure me. "He's not hurt or anything….Physically."

"Alice." I snapped.

She brought her hands back to her lap and regarded me warily.

"He won't let go of you." she said quietly.

I couldn't feel the bed beneath me. I couldn't feel anything. There was no wave. There was no emotion. I felt nothing. Only the empty void of silence in me. There was no thought. No breath. I sat there, completely still.

"Emma?" she called softly. She raised herself from her seat at the window and kneeled down in front of me. "Emma, sweetheart."

"What are you talking about, Alice?" I breathed. I could barely hear myself, as if my voice were detached from the rest of me and came from somewhere off in the distance.

She breathed in deeply and sighed, keeping her eyes on mine. "He hasn't let you go. He thinks you're dead, but…." she trailed off.

I stood up and her hands fell from my lap. I walked over to the window she had previously occupied, my limbs feeling heavy.

"He isn't living." she said behind me. "He just…exists. I didn't think you wanted to know." she said quietly and I turned to face her. Her eyes were down cast.

I moved forward, coming to stand in front of her.

"Thank you for telling me." I said. My voice sounded so small, barely audible and tumbling messily from my lips.

Her eye brows knitted together and looked as though she would if she could cry, she would.

"I'm so sorry, Em." she whispered.

But I shook my head.

"Tell me…." my voice was cracking and sounded hoarse. "Tell me about him."

She hesitated before deciding she had said too much already and took a deep breath.

"He just…stopped. He shut down when they didn't find you." she said. "He was moved to California, but he kept tabs on the search. He would call and check in with everyone in Kodiak, and when they had nothing left to offer, he followed the news. When they didn't find you…you were declared dead."

She looked at me again and took my hand.

"Em, he…" She stopped and just looked and me. With a heavy sigh, she closed her eyes and wrapped her arms around me. "He loves you."

**A/N: Bombshell!**

**I'm sorry for the delay in posting, but for some reason this chapter was hard to piece together. But good news is I'm already hard at work on the next! Please, feel free to leave a comment and tell your friends!**


	6. Chapter 11: Moves

**I'm so heavy in your arms. I was a heavy heart to carry, my beloved was weighed down. My arms around his neck, my fingers laced to crown. I was a heavy heart to carry, but he never let me down. When he held me in his arms, my feet never touched the ground. I'm so heavy, so heavy in your arms. -Florence + The Machine**

11. Moves

The entire world ended. The earth no longer turned, the river outside slowed and halted. It all fell away and crumbled down around me. Without Alice standing here, holding me up, I too would have fallen away with it. Her words had wound themselves around me and brought me down with them. I drowned in them.

"Emma. No!" She called after me as I flew blindly down the stairs. I wrenched open the top drawer of a desk in the living room where we kept the keys. I raked through them with my fingers. It's funny how so many things can go through your mind in fractions of a second. Looking at all the keys. A calm, collected debate sounded in my head.

_Best not take the Jeep, the gas tank is too small, I would be stopping too often for gas. Rosalie's and Carlisle's are gone. Well, I can't take Nessie's that's just wrong. I could take the Duchatti, it is fast. But then what if it becomes sunny? No that won't do, California has too much sun for that. Not the Farari, too ostentatious. The Volvo, might not be fast enough, that would drive me crazy. Porche? Hmm….A bright yellow Porche 911 Turbo. Fast, but flashy. Oh well, it'll do._

"Alice, I'm borrowing your car." I said.

Her hand wrapped around my elbow.

"Emma, No! You can't do this." she pleaded. "You can't go to him!"

"I have to go, Alice." I said distractedly and made to go to the garage.

"Wait!" she yelled. "What if he sees you, what if anyone sees you? What then?"

"That won't happen." I said and ran toward the door.

"Wait, please, just wait to discuss this with Carlisle."

I stopped. What would Carlisle say? What would any of them say? This involved them too. They were my family. They were tied to me. If something were to happen, they would be just as affected as me.

"What is going on in here?" Esme's voice came from the front door, she stood in the open doorway with the handle still on her finger tips.

We both turned to see her confused eyes.

"I have to go, Esme." I explained quickly. "But I'll be back soon, I promise."

"Go where, honey?" Her eyes were perplexed and concerned at the air of distress in the room. She studied my face for a moment and the concern grew.

"Emma, please just wait." Alice pleaded again, slowly reaching for my hand and taking it in hers.

"Is anything going to happen?" I asked her quickly. It was such a broad question, but she knew perfectly what I was asking. Will this have a consequence? One that will affect us all? Will anything go wrong? Will I be seen and recognized? It had only been a few years. Will anything bad happen to _him_? Every possible question to ask were encompassed in those five words.

She looked at me, the earnest in her eyes fading. "No." she said quietly.

I turned and walked through the kitchen, leaving Esme with one last look, trying to reassure her.

"I'll have my phone." I told her.

Alice followed quickly behind me. Edward stood with his arms crossed, he viewed us with a passive look. Bella stood next to him, with her arm on his waist. She had the same look, mirroring her husband. My guess is she had heard everything, and Edward would have filled her in on any missing details. I passed them and entered the garage. I was in the car already, waiting for the garage door to open just enough.

"Emma, please." Alice was leaning in the driver's side window. "Just wait."

"I'll be back, I promise." I told her.

"You don't even know where you're going." she whispered. And I stopped. I looked at her again. Her eyes were pleading.

"Where in California, Alice?"

She looked at me with cautious eyes. This of course, wasn't a very rational move on my part. But nothing was going to happen, she had verified that. I was not, by most accounts an impulsive person, but this was an impulse to act on. There wasn't any other option in my mind.

"Alice…"

She pursed her lips and sighed.

"Alameda." She said quietly. "William Avenue, apartment 4 F." She stood from the window then, her hand lingering on the sill before dropping to her side.

"Thank you, Alice." I said. And I meant it, more than anything. "With all my heart, thank you."

"Emma?" she called softly. The garage door had lifted just enough, I could have squeezed through, but I stayed. I looked her in the eyes. "Please, just be careful." she breathed.

"Always." I said. She nodded at that.

"I know." she said.

The door was fully open now, with a loud click, it met the catch at the top of the track and I raced from the garage, ripping down the narrow driveway. Gravel flew out behind me as I sped through the trees and disappeared as it was replaced with the asphalt of the highway.

**ALICE**

"No!" I breathed.

She was leaving, tearing down a highway in… is that _my_ car? She was somewhere else now, coastal. There was an apartment building. The words 'William Ave' flickered in front of me. She was waiting a few blocks down the street. She was below a window. She was going to him.

I began to shake my head against her, but she hadn't noticed me. She was standing there, completely still in my arms. I pulled away enough to look at her, to see her face. Her lips were parted slightly and her eyes were staring blankly ahead. Was it even possible for her to be a shade paler?

"Emma?" I called quietly. She didn't move. I placed my hand on the side of her face, trying to get her to look at me. But her eyes were as blank as her face, and she just stared. "Emma, sweetheart?"

It broke my heart to say it, to see her like this now. It was almost the same as that day on the tree bough. I had asked her then, if she would want me to watch out for him. If she would want to know where he was, what he was doing, how his life was developing. I could see the want in her eyes. I could see how it warred with apprehension and pulled her back and forth in her own mind. It may not have been the wisest move on my part, to make such an offer, at that moment. But it was right. The poor thing was tethered to a man she could not be with. A man she loved, but was forced by circumstance, to stay away from.

_Bella was human. When Edward fell in love with her…._ But this was different. Bella hadn't known him when he was alive, when _he_ was human. To this boy, Emma was dead. If she were to come back to him now, he would know something was up. He would find out about our kind.

_Bella found out. She discovered your family's secret. And had taken Edward all the same. _Yes but this was still different. And there were rules. _You broke the rules for Bella…._ Again, different! It was inevitable with her. It was so solid, either she would be one of us or she would die.

_And what about this boy? What will become of him?_ I didn't know. I tried to look ahead, but all I saw was Emma.

With a small intake of breath, Emma's body unfroze in my arms. Without hesitation, or even registering that I was in front of her, she moved forward and charged down the staircase. Determination burning in her eyes.

"Emma, no!" I shouted. Keys rattled down in the living room.

"Alice, I'm borrowing your car." she said quickly, not even looking in my direction. She turned toward the garage and I raced to stop her. My hand clasped around her left elbow, I pulled and she turned slightly to view me.

"Emma, no! You can't do this." I said. "You can't go to him!"

Panic started to build in my chest. This was rash. She hadn't thought this through. There would be consequences to something like this.

"I have to go, Alice." Her voice was distant, distracted. She turned again, easily breaking my grasp in her movement and stepped toward the kitchen.

"Wait! What if he sees you? What if _anyone_ sees you? What then?" I said.

"That won't happen." she said, shaking her head slightly as she rushed toward the door.

This was far too rash. We needed to slow down just a little. Carlisle would be home in an hour or so. We should at least discuss this with him.

_This is her decision._ That affects us all. _But it's still up to her, ultimately. You couldn't stop Edward._ Edward couldn't stop himself! And that was different! _It held the same consequences._

"Wait, please, just wait to discuss this with Carlisle." I pleaded.

She stopped and turned to face me fully this time. Understanding finally breaking across her face.

"What is going on in here?" Esme said as she came in through the front door. We both turned to see her.

"I have to go, Esme." Emma said, the strong determination returning to her eyes. "But I'll be back soon, I promise."

"Go where, honey?" Esme asked her, confusion beginning to mix with worry.

"Emma, please just wait." I said again, taking her hand in mine.

"Is anything going to happen?" she asked, and I knew what she meant.

I knew what she was asking. I looked forward again, there was the small apartment on William Avenue, there was a door that read '4 F', but nothing came up. There was no panic, no contingency plans that would have to be made, no damage control. But I saw her coming back. And what I saw in her broke my heart all over again. This was going to hurt her.

Her eyes were expectant and her words hung in the air. Esme looked between us, awaiting my answer. I could hear Edward and Bella in the kitchen, they were quietly listening as well.

"No." I said quietly.

With a small nod, she turned on her heel. "I'll have my phone." she said to Esme, as if to assure her that she would be fine. That she would be within reach. She made her way through the kitchen and I followed. I looked at Edward as I passed him, hoping to find some assistance, but his face was indifferent, impartial. Bella's seemed to mirror his, but there was concern there as well, as her eyes followed Emma.

The engine roared to life and revved impatiently as the garage door groaned and slowly crept up its tracks. Hopefully, it would give me the time I needed. _Hopefully_, Emma wouldn't decide to crash through it in her impatience. I knelt by her open window and leaned in, resting my arms along the door frame.

"Emma, please." I pleaded quietly. "Just wait."

"I'll be back, I promise." she said, her eyes trained on the garage door as it moved painstakingly slow. The engine roared impatiently again and I cringed at the thought of her shooting forward before the door was up enough.

"You don't even know where you're going…" I whispered.

Her eyes came to mine then and softened. They were focused on me entirely for the first time since I had told her. But the determination burned somewhere behind them, and was threatening to steal her attention again.

"Where in California, Alice?" she asked quietly.

I hesitated, I could withhold this from her. How could she leave if she didn't know where she going? But something told me she would go anyway. She would drive down every street in California if she had to. Look up every Cavanaugh in the phone book and search one by one. She was on a mission, that was clearly evident.

"Alice…." she breathed.

I pursed my lips and sighed heavily. Nothing I did or said would hold her here. Emma wasn't irresponsible. And as impulsive and impetuous as this was, Emma would be as cautious as she possibly could. There was nothing in her future, our future that was condemnable from this act. This was something she needed. However it would play out, whatever I couldn't see, this would bring a closure of sorts. It would hurt, but this, was what was necessary.

"Alameda." I told her. "William Avenue, apartment 4 F."

I stood from her window, letting my hand linger on the door before it fell limply to my side.

"Thank you, Alice." she said quietly. Her eyes brimming with sincerity. "With all my heart, thank you."

"Emma? Please, just be careful." I breathed.

And I knew she would be. Whatever was within her control, Emma would be careful. But it was what wasn't within her control that worried me. The inevitable damage this would do to her. She was hurtling toward it, head first and didn't even know it.

"Always." she said, a small smile playing on her lips.

I nodded at that. "I know."

I stepped back from the car, the door nearly open fully. When it caught at the top, the determination that drove Emma returned in full force and stole her completely. My porche leapt forward as the engine screamed and tore down the gravel drive. I could hear the small pebbles being kicked up by the tires, ricocheting off nearby trees. And then the tires screeching as they met the pavement of the highway, running south.

Not long after that, Carlisle returned home from the hospital. And when Emmett and Rosalie arrived, we gathered in the dinning room and sat at the long ornate table that we used for all discussions.

"What is this about?" Rosalie's voice sounded.

Carlisle looked to me, silently asking if I would prefer to explain it.

"Emma has decided to go to California for a while." I announced. Jasper settled in the seat to my left and gently took my hand in his.

"What for?" Rosalie scoffed. She looked around the room, at all the faces that knew more than she did.

"Doesn't she have family in California? Aren't her parents there?" She asked, incredulity building in her voice.

"Her parents moved to Alaska when she disappeared." Edward contributed. His arms were still crossed against his chest with a hand balled at his lips.

"Then why has she left? What is she taking a vacation or something?" Rose asked. But her question was met with silence.

"Will someone please tell me what is going on?" Irritation was building in her eyes.

Incredibly, Emmett sat quietly at her side. He looked around the room, waiting for an answer.

"She's gone to see him." Carlisle said

"Her human?" Emmett asked quietly.

Rosalie's eyes bulged.

"And you did nothing to stop her?" she shouted.

"I was not here to do so, Rosalie. And I doubt I could have convinced her otherwise, had I been." Carlisle explained.

Rose huffed.

"But the rest of you were here, you couldn't stop her?" she asked, looking at each of us.

"That would have made me quite the hypocrite." Edward said.

She gaped at him. "Do any of you realize what this will mean? What this will bring?"

Rosalie threw her hands in the air and stood.

"Unbelievable!" she shouted. "It's happening all over again! How foolish can you all be?"

"Rosie…." Emmett said quietly, attempting to gently pull her back to her seat beside him.

"No!" she huffed. "I can't believe this!"

"Nothing is going to happen, Rosalie." I said.

She opened her mouth to retort, but when her eyes landed on me, it snapped shut again and she seethed, knowing I would be right.

"What if something does happen? What if something changes, Alice? And something new happens?"

"She isn't stupid, Rose. She won't make a mistake." I said through my teeth.

"She's in _love_! Of course she'll make a mistake!" she shouted. "And then we'll have her mess to clean up! We'll have to move and cover our tracks!"

"Of course we'll move, Rosalie." I snapped. "That's a given. But not because of Emma, not because of this."

"Alice has already informed us of the details, Emma will be returning shortly." Carlisle interjected. "She sees nothing of consequence stemming from this."

Rosalie fumed and dropped back into her seat. Emmett's arm came around her shoulders and pulled her toward him slightly.

"What exactly is she doing?" she snapped.

"I don't know." I said.

She chuckled darkly. "Details, huh? And you don't even know even know what she's up to?"

"I don't think she's quite decided that, yet." My teeth clenched together.

"But you're all so sure of the outcome." she nodded wryly.

"Yes, I am." I said, sitting up straight. "And I trust her."

A small laugh escaped Rosalie's mouth and she shook her head.

Emmett was staring quietly at the table, with one arm around Rosalie and the other calmly stroking her right hand.

"I trust her." he said. Every eye shifted to him and Rose's head twisted quickly to look at him fully.

"What?" she asked.

"She'll be fine." he said looking at her. Rose's eyes bore into him.

"I trust her, too." Esme said. Her eyes had a light in them. A gently glow that I had seen before. We had been sitting at this very table, having a very similar discussion. She had looked at Edward that way when he fell for Bella.

Oh, Esme. She would be just as crushed as Emma when she sees the her again. When she sees the hurt that I did and realize that it isn't going to be the same as with Edward and Bella. My head fell and I looked at my hands, folded in my lap. Jazz's hand came over them, and held them warmly again as he crooked his head to meet my eyes. He knew.

"Fantastic." Rosalie said. "When this ends badly, I won't bother saying I told you so."

With that she stood and left. Emmett lingered in his chair for a few moments, his brow slightly furrowed. With a nod to everyone, he stood and followed after his wife. I looked ahead again, following Emma as she crossed state lines and sped along the coastline.

"Will she be alright?" Jasper whispered quietly.

I nodded to him, keeping my eyes on his hand as it clasped mine. "Eventually."

**A/N: Work has been busy, and will only get busier. So I will keep writing and post when I can. I promise! Just bare with me. And hey, look at that. A review button. I dare you to click. it. Go on, you know you want to! Leave some love.**


	7. Chapter 12: Waves

12: Waves

ALICE

"Should we call her?" Emmett asked for the fifteenth time.

"She'll call when she's ready, Em." I said patiently.

"What about a text?" he added, a crease forming between his eyes.

"She's fine, Emmett. And she'll contact us if she needs to."

He sighed heavily again and nodded. "Okay."

Emma had been gone for a week and a half now. The only contact we had received was a text saying that she had made it there safely. But I kept the family updated regularly with her status. I told them only that she was safe, that nothing bad had happened to her. Any and everything else I kept to myself. That was her business. Even Edward did what he could not to pry, he would give her what privacy he could, concerned only with her safety and well being. But every now and then, one of us would become restless, like Emmett, and ask what she was up to. Rosalie, though she would never admit it out loud, was concerned as well.

"How is she?" she had asked one day, when we were alone.

"She's okay, Rose." I had said, a little taken aback by the genuine concern that she tried to mask with indifference.

She nodded. "And, the boy… is he okay?"

"He's -"

"He doesn't know anything, does he?" she suddenly asked.

"No. Rose, he doesn't know. Emma's been keeping her distance." I replied curtly.

"Oh. Well, you'll let us know… if anything happens to her. Or him." she asked.

"Yes. Rose, you will know." I doubted if she were truly concerned for him, only that Emma hadn't exposed us or manage to kill him in their close proximity.

The days wore on, and her absence was evident everywhere we looked. Esme would send expectant looks my way every now and again, silently inquiring if Emma was happy. Carlisle even asked, on a daily basis. Whenever he would return home from his shift he would ask of her. Emmett wasn't quite the same either, he would get antsy and begin to worry. He didn't like not being able to help. Poor Jazz was beginning to feel weighed down by it all, feeling different measures of concern and curiosity. And I missed her. I saw her whenever I wanted, but she was still too far away. And seeing what she was going through, watching her struggle wasn't helping. There was nothing I could do, nothing any of us could do, but wait patiently. To give her the time she needed, and be here when she returned home. I looked at the screen on my phone again, knowing there weren't any new messages.

EMMA

The screen lit up again, a moment before my phone buzzed. I looked down at it, contemplating not picking it up this time. I hadn't called, and I hadn't contacted them since arriving here. It wasn't fair to them. I shouldn't be so selfish. I reached over and picked it up, it was another message from Emmett. I would have to answer at some point, at least let them know that I was okay. I flipped open the screen to read it.

_Answer your damn phone._

I had to smile, he certainly didn't beat around the bush with things. And so I answered him, knowing full well that I'd be answering everyone.

_I'm fine. Please don't worry. _

I closed the screen when it verified that my message had been sent and let the phone drop to the passenger seat. But it buzzed again and lit up the dark interior of Alice's porche. I owed them, at least some contact, I owed them that much.

_When are you coming home?_

I sighed as I looked at his words. I couldn't truthfully answer that. I would have to eventually, but an actual timeline was indefinite at the moment.

_I don't know, Emmett._

It buzzed again.

_You promised._

_I will come home. I just don't know when. Tell everyone I love them._

He didn't answer for a while. After five minutes I figured he'd given up for the night or just let me be, but it buzzed again.

_Do what you need to do._

I stared at the words for some time. Put bluntly in plain English, Emmett had said exactly what I had been trying to do all along. And it stared me in the face now, pushing me to make a move. I slowly closed my phone, placing it face down on the leather seat next to me and looked up at his window again.

For the past two weeks I had watched him. Keeping my distance, I would see him go about a daily routine of waking, breakfast, work, home, errands, dinner, and watching TV until he couldn't hold his eyes open any longer. Everyday, for two weeks, the same routine.

I remember when I had arrived, it was three in the morning. I had parked a block down from his apartment building. It was quiet around me. The world was asleep, dreaming soundly in their warm beds while I sat in the small, dark interior of Alice's car. For three hours I waited in absolute silence, sitting as still as I possibly could. Only one block away, in a building just down the street, he slept quietly in his bed. Somewhere in that building, he lived and breathed. It was all I could do to remain still. I kept my breath in a slow steady rhythm as I counted the windows, wondering which was his.

The sky began to lighten around five, and some people could be heard close by. Stirring as they prepared for the day. All I could do was sit there and stare. He still drove the same blue pick up truck, an old dodge that was the same model as one I had driven in high school. It was parked in a small stall under a flimsy overhang. At six, the front door opened.

It had been three years since I had seen him. Only three years since I had gone for a hike in Kodiak, Alaska. Three years since I had seen his face. Three years since I had heard his voice. Three years since my heart had beat. Three years was a lifetime. A new wave came then. It swelled from somewhere deep in the center of my chest and broke over me with a flood of release. All apprehension, any anxiety, any fear that I had experienced on the drive from Forks, as I sat here waiting, disappeared. There was no room for it any longer. It was replaced, pushed out by the overwhelming emotion that flooded through me and left me staggered. My breathing stopped.

There he was. After all this time, here he was, not two hundred feet from me. He walked slowly from the doorway, making his way down the few steps to the pavement below . His face was down, but I knew it was him. He walked to his truck, keys in hand. His dark wavy hair had grown out and stuck out at odd angles. Somewhere along the way, he had become skinnier, his shoulders were not as full and his arms were thinner, with less definition. He had become more tan in an environment that was not constantly covered with a blanket of rain clouds, but his skin was sallow. His face was blank. And he walked without looking where he was going, as if he were on autopilot.

As his truck began to back out of its designated space, I too went into autopilot. Moving without seeing, without thinking. My body functioned and shifted gears numbly as my brain swam in its frozen, stunned state of paralysis. As he drove down the street, so did I. Pulled along with him by some invisible tether.

I had followed him, for weeks now, being pulled along with him and watching from a distance. He was no longer in the military. He had been stationed here when I disappeared, but when his enlistment was up, he just stayed. He was an electrician for a private company now. I had remembered him telling me his plans to work with the Coast Guard as a civilian contractor when he retired, I remembered him planning it all out. But now, he had chosen to work for a local company, installing wire in residential and business areas. He went about his day, everyday, with the same blank, distracted expression. When people talked to him, he listened and responded, but it was as if he wasn't really there. Not fully present.

He would return home in the evening, make dinner, do laundry or clean, take a shower and watch whatever would be on the TV for a few hours. In the morning, an alarm would go off, and he would start over again.

I sat in Alice's car now, parked in front of his building and staring at his window again. I had gotten closer every night, parking a little closer toward his building each time. Emmett's message ran through my head again and I felt my hand reach for the handle. It was pitch black out, and all around me, windows were dark and silent. I crossed the street, looking around me for witnesses and feeling very much like a stalker.

There were rules. Carlisle had explained to me that we did not make spectacles of ourselves, that we did not draw attention. We did nothing to expose the truth of what we were. As I stood beneath his window, I considered throwing the rules out. I looked around again to make sure no one was watching, to make sure no one would see what I was about to do next. I looked back to his window, a good twenty feet above me and jumped. It wasn't difficult, my finger tips held my weight easily as they edged the shallow window sill. His window was shut and the curtains slightly parted. I peered in to see the living room, and placed a hand along the side to slowly force the frame upward, it wasn't locked. Being twenty feet off the ground with hardly any foothold near it, it wasn't a necessity. It slid up easily, catching only slightly half way up and causing a small squeak. With a last look over my shoulder, I glanced into the black windows around me and crawled in.

I stood there in the quiet of his living room, simply breathing. I hadn't thought about it, I hadn't thought not to. And now, at once I was both livid with myself at the possible harm that carelessness could have brought, and startled by what I did smell. Just as I remembered it, the whole room was filled with his scent. It was light and fresh and enveloped me entirely. I closed my eyes and breathed in deeply, letting it flow down my lungs and wash through me. I looked around the tiny space, at his belongings that he had placed throughout the room. I looked at pictures that hung on the walls and sat in frames on shelves. It was clean, with a recently used mug on the coffee table and a jacket thrown over the back of the sofa. In the kitchen, a small red light blinked on the dishwasher, indicating that the dishes were dry and the clock on the coffee maker changed to one thirty.

A soft exhale of breath came from an open door down the hall and I froze, standing in front of the refrigerator, no longer seeing the various magnets that adorned it. Fifteen feet away from me, Marc turned over in his sleep. My feet automatically drifted toward the gentle sounds of his breathing and carried me toward him. As I came closer to his door, I could hear the faint rhythm of his heart, slowly and steadily beating. He lay on his side, wrapped loosely in warm blankets and sleeping peacefully. The tranquility on his face while he slept was a stark difference from the vacant stare he wore while awake. This calm serenity was closer to the Marc I had known. He seemed…happier, in his slumber.

His breath came in deep, even draws and his lips parted slightly. I could have stayed here forever watching him sleep. Watching as his eyes danced slowly behind their lids while he dreamt. If it were at all possible, I would happily stay here for the rest of my existence. If it were at all possible, I would spend every night, sitting right here, listening to his slow, soft breaths.

And so every night for the last week, when it was late enough, when the world around me had retired to their beds, I returned here. I hadn't hunted in nearly three weeks, and I could feel the slight hollow pang in my stomach, but I didn't want to leave him. The beautiful scent that surrounded me added to the hunger a little, but didn't make me anymore thirsty. I didn't want to be without it. I had gone too long without knowing it, relying on faint memories that were a pale impression of the air around me now.

For only six hours, I was allowed sit here and watch over him. For only six hours, I was able to be this close to him. Only six hours until his alarm would sound and I would be forced to leave him. It was funny, how some things just didn't change. When I had known him before, when I was human, I was only able to get so close to him because of circumstance. And now, after so much had changed, I was still held by circumstance. Even now, I could only get so close. _But I wonder…_No. Absolutely not.

A heated debate began in my head as want clashed with reality.

_Why not?_ Because there are rules. _To hell with the rules!_ You know you couldn't do that. _You always abide by the rules, don't you deserve to be a little selfish? For once? Especially with this?_ No.

Marc moved a little in his sleep, pulling his pillow closer to him. The debate in my mind paused to watch him intently. He settled with a deep sigh and became still once more. _You could get a little closer…_And when he wakes up and sees you hovering over him like a psycho stalker, what then? _For Pete's sake, Emma, you're incredibly quiet. You won't wake him up!_ You can't risk that. _Stop being such a martyr and do what you _need_ to do. _That's not need, that's selfish and reckless. _Look at the state you're in, that you have been in, tell me that's not need._ I've done without it before. _My point exactly…._

"Wait…"

Did he just say something? I looked at his face again. His breathing was still deep and even, and his eyes were closed, but there was a slight crease between them. He had definitely said something, but his voice had been thick with sleep and it was mumbled. The crease between his eyes deepened and he pulled his pillow even closer.

"Don't…"

What was he dreaming about? He had been so peaceful in his sleep as far as I had seen. He was just having a bad dream, that's all…it happens occasionally. I didn't like it though. I didn't like the thought of him not sleeping well. I didn't like the idea of him having a nightmare, it seemed wrong. I felt a strong urge to comfort him. An irrational want to 'make the bad man go away' stole over me. I wanted to put an end to whatever was troubling him. Unconsciously my feet moved slowly toward him.

"Emma." he breathed.

It was clear as day. He had said my name. I was in his nightmare. His eyebrows were knitted together and his breathing was increasing, his hands clung to his pillow. And I couldn't move. I stood there as the shock reverberated through me and pulled me down. _He won't let you go_, she had said. My knees gave out beneath me. There, kneeling at his bedside, I looked into his face, my breathing matching his.

He pulled his pillow closer still and he exhaled deeply. His face began to scrunch up and a thin sheen of sweat broke out on his forehead. My arm began to lift, bringing my hand up, but that was wrong. I couldn't touch him. My hand hung in the air between us, hesitating to oblige the small voice in my head that told me this was wrong.

"Please…" he said.

And that was all I needed.

The rules all but went out the window, cast out of my mind, no longer carrying the weight they would need to outweigh anything with Marc. My hand gently moved forward, and for the first time, I was able to touch him on my own terms. It was not an accidental brush or glance in the narrow passageways of the ship. It was not inches away in confined spaces. Now, my thumb gently smoothed his cheek and my palm rested on his neck. The crease between his eyes softened, and his breathing slowed.

"Don't go." he breathed. And my heart fell.

At some point I would have to. Every part of me railed against the truth, willing it not to be so. Every fiber in me, in my heart, warred futilely with it. It wasn't fair. None of this was fair. After all this time, after all that had changed in us and all we had been through, something still stood between us. A bitter anger burned in me, shouting at the truth, condemning it. I cried out against it inside, beating it back and trying to hide it away. But it would not budge. It would not be moved.

A shuddering breath entered my lungs as my thumb softly stroked his cheek.

"I'm here." I said.

His hand grasped tighter and his breath came in deeper. I had moved closer to him at some point, my face only about a foot from his. His sweet breath blew across my face, leaving a slight hum of electricity in its wake. _He isn't living. He just…exists._

I looked from his face to his hand, clenched tightly at the corner of his pillow, holding on for dear life. I thought of how he went from day to day, going through the motions and reacting to the world around him all while numb. I remembered how I would do the same after the waves would dissipate. How I would involve myself in my family's lives, but feel nothing. How I wasn't able to feel anything in the aftermath, my nerves being too scarred . And I knew it was the same for him. That in the last three years, he been reeling from a wave of his own. _Do what you need to do._

My thumb gently rubbed against his cheek again and again. In two hours, his alarm clock would sound and he would wake from whatever dream he was wrapped up in. And I would be damned if he went about another day in such a state. If he went through one more hour suffering as he did. I would be damned if he let his life dwindle away, clutching at dreams.

"I'm here." I whispered again. "I will always be here, Marc."

He drew in a deep breath and his eye brows pulled up in the center. I looked at him lying there, his shoulders were tight and his legs were slowly becoming tangled in the sheets.

"I will always watch over you." I told him. And with a deep breath, I said the words that had hung between us. The truth that stood solemnly in front of me, that would not be denied.

"But you have to let go." I breathed.

His hand gripped tighter and lips formed a tense line.

"No…" he breathed. "Please."

"You have to, Marc." I said. It wasn't just him that I was speaking to. I was telling myself to let go as well. Forcing myself to face the truth. "You have to let me go."

"I don't want to." he mumbled as his face tensed.

I brought my hand up to his forehead, running my fingers over the creases that formed there. At my touch, they loosened and fell calm. He sighed heavily and twisted his hand against the fabric of his pillow case. My other hand came up to rest over it.

"Let go, Marc."

His breath came in deep, strong gusts and his eyes squeezed together. I moved closer, allowing his scent to wash over me with every breath. Listening to the soft beats of his heart and wishing with everything in me that I could remain there. I leaned in close, and could feel the heat radiating off his skin, it burned across my face and enveloped me in its warmth.

"I love you." I whispered and closed my eyes against the wave that swelled in my chest, towering high above me.

I felt his hand relax beneath mine, and he softly exhaled. My forehead came to rest on his, and I felt his fingers unwind from the fabric.

"I always will." I said. And with a sharp intake of breath, I tilted my head upward until my lips met with his brow. Beneath my hand, his fingers slipped and fell from the pillow.

I let my lips linger there for a moment more, memorizing how they felt against his skin. How the electrical hum passed between us and filled me completely. Memorizing his scent, his warmth and how his pulse slowed at my touch. It was the first and only time I would be able to touch him like this. It was the first and last time I would feel his skin under mine, and the last time my lips would touch him. I pulled away slightly to view he one last time. The peaceful, content face had returned to his features. And I thanked God that _this_ would be the last image I would have of him. I thanked God that it would be burned in my memory forever, and would never fade. I let my fingers drag across his skin as I stood. When the contact was severed, the cool of the room replaced his warmth.

Slower than would have thought possible, I willed my feet to carry me away from his bedside, from his room and down the hall to his living room. A soft breeze blew through his open window and caused the curtains to sway gently. As I passed the small sofa, I looked down at the jacket he had thrown over it. It was well worn and had a long navy blue thread hanging from the bottom hem. I bent down and wound it around my finger, pulling it loose. I suppose if I had already gone the stalker and breaking and entering route, I might as well tack on petty theft to my list. I stood slowly and wrapped it around my left wrist, tying it there. Besides memories, it would be the only thing I would have of him. I ran my fingers over the thread and looked to the window again.

"Goodbye, Marc." I whispered.

The sky had began to lighten where it touched the horizon. I sat there in the car and watched as the sun slowly began to peek over it. In the passenger seat next to me, my phone still lay there, face down. I wouldn't need to call them, I would need to send a text, Alice would see. An alarm buzzed quietly somewhere behind the closed window above me. Looking at the thin blue thread looped loosely around my wrist, I pressed down on the clutch and shifted into first gear.

**A/N: Please don't hate me. I had to do it. This chapter was a little rushed, I know. But I wanted to get it out there before the work week began. Leave some reviews and I promise a little more quality the next go round. I'm lovin the number of people who are reading around the world. Makes my heart swell ****J There's the review button, leave me some sugar!**


	8. Chapter 13: Shells

Disclaimer: I do not own Twilight, Stephenie Meyer does.

A/N: Oh, yes…I know it's been quite a while, but if you knew my work schedule, I'm sure you would understand. Last chapter ended with Marc having a dream about Emma (which happens often). If you'd like to read his side of that nights events, hop on over to my profile to check it out. I'm feeling kind of lonely in the review department….. Give me a shout out my lovely readers, let me know what you think!

With that said, here's the long awaited chapter 13. Enjoy.

13. Shells

With every mile, with every inch, the further I moved away from him, the further I felt from myself. I could feel him behind me, I could feel his pull reaching out for me. Tugging me back from the center of my chest and calling out to me to turn around. But my mind told me that that was impossible. My hands gripped the wheel tighter and begged and pleaded with my mind to order them to move. To allow my foot to remove itself from the gas pedal and shift over to the clutch. But it remained resolved, and denied me. It felt as if I were being stretched, as if part of me were left back at the small apartment and the other pulled along with Alice's porche. I could feel myself reaching the breaking point, sometime soon, I would snap in half. With every mile, with every inch, I was stretched. My hands gripped the steering wheel so tightly that it began to bend under the stress. And just like that, I was pulled to my maximum limit. Just like that, the part of me left with Marc detached itself from the rest. From the cold, unyielding pragmatism. My hands shook slightly with the recoil. From there on, I felt nothing. I was floating, lost in a numb haze. Any capacity for feeling that I had held had been battered and exhausted. There was nothing left now, only a detached hollow shell.

I was on autopilot for the drive across the Oregon and Washington state lines. My mind registering the world around me without me needing to be anything other than physically present in it. My body moved automatically, maneuvering through the many twists and turns of the pavement that flew beneath me. Eventually I was swerving efficiently through the familiar meandering gravel driveway to our house. Before I knew it, I was pulling up close to the garage, my arm automatically lifting to press the button of the remote door opener. The car slowed as it gently came to rest in its designated space. Ahead of me, Alice sat cross-legged on a tool vidmar, staring down at her hands folded in her lap. She did not look up as I removed the key from the ignition and stepped silently from the door.

"You've made your decision…" she whispered quietly, still looking at her hands.

I stood there with her keys resting lightly in my hand and regarded her.

"Yes I have." The voice that spoke was my own. It must have been, but it was flat and indifferent.

She nodded quickly and looked up at me, her eyes were resigned and decisive, but I noticed the remnants of sorrow that tinged her features before she hid them away. She steeled herself and straightened in her seat.

"Okay." she said simply.

She lithely slipped down from her perch and came to my side, taking my hand. As we walked to the house I handed back her keys. They were all home, but remained mostly silent as we entered. Their eyes were already at the door we walked through, with a sad smile, Carlisle came to stand in front of me.

"Emma….We're glad to have you back." he said tenderly, putting a hand to my shoulder. "I am sorry, and we will respect your decisions. If you need time…."

"I don't need time, Carlisle, thank you." I said. "I have all the time in the world…. I'm home now."

I wasn't sure what to say exactly. I left my sentence hanging, not knowing or caring much to formulate articulate or concise statements. But he seemed to understand. With a small smile and slight nod he accepted it. Esme stood with her hands in front of her at the foot of the stairs, her eyes holding the same sadness Alice's had, only more openly evident. Edward and Bella stood by the window, while Emmett shoved his hands in his pockets and sat next Rosalie as she read a book. She looked up from it and her eye brows pulled up slightly in the center. She let the book fall to her lap and her eyes filled with compassion. I moved past them to travel up the stairs to the room Edward had once claimed. I had been keeping my things there for some time. As I began up the stairs, Esme's hand rested briefly on mine. I paused to look her in the eye. There wasn't much I would have been able to say, or explain. But I hoped my silent attempt to convey anything to her was understandable. I continued to the room and as I entered, my eyes roamed over the scattered belongings, and rested on a small thick book. It was old and threadbare, and written completely in Latin. I lifted it from its place on the desk and settled with it in my lap. I did not feel the urge to run. I held no desire to sprint headlong into the forest and escape to my favorite haunt. The place I had so often traveled to clear my mind, or mull over thoughts of Marc. Now, I felt nothing. I sat on the deep plush of the carpet and rested my back against the window as I occupied myself entirely with the study of language. Outside the large window, the trees moved in the winter winds, rustling as it brushed through them and traveled eastward, moving through a small clearing with swaying tall grass.

We moved not long after, spending some time in Tennessee, Toronto, New Hampshire and finally settling in New York. Charlie visited often. Bella and Edward would alternate flying him to our most recent home and going to see him in Washington. Not being very much the car type, Carlisle thought to present me with a set of keys one spring afternoon that belonged to a large Dodge pick up. Alice reveled in the rich fashion scene of the city. I indulged her in attending couture and chic shows, meeting with designers I had never heard of and updating the family's wardrobe and jewelry collection. She kept close by, always keeping me busy and always filling the position by my side. And I did what I could for her, involving myself in her activities as thoroughly as I could. But I did so in a state of mild coma. I operated automatically from day to day, immersing myself in foreign languages, arts, sciences, philosophy, and whatever else presented itself. I attended Columbia in the fall, undertaking an extensive schedule of night classes, filling my time and absorbing all around me. But however much I took on, however much I accomplished or produced, I was empty. I moved calculatedly and efficiently, but without verve.

Every now and then, I would see Alice glance at me with a slight look of worry darkening her eyes, but the same resolved decisiveness would return and she would drag me along again to some grandiose extravagance. Some nights, when I wasn't in class, or when Alice wasn't asking me to go dancing with her at the latest club or whenever my mind wasn't completely occupied, I would walk along the streets of the city, moving silently through the noise and hustling crowds. It was all so busy here, alive with lights and movement, never slowing, never ceasing. For a while it was wonderfully distracting. But soon enough, my natural desire for more remote and quiet open spaces came calling back. Some nights, I would drive upstate, roaming the open country side to hunt and breathe freely. I would stay out until just before dawn, looking at the stars and reveling in the stillness. It was more difficult to see the stars in the city, there was far too much light. I would lay out in open fields, or under large trees, simply viewing them. But it was never quite right, never quite satisfying. There was always something missing from it. I would drive farther each time, traveling into Canada, roaming through the mountains and pine trees.

Tonight, I was in some part of Ontario, far beyond any signs of civilization. I walked aimlessly, letting the heavy scents of the night wash through me in the light breeze. As I moved through the trees, I could hear the wind change pitch ahead of me. It moved through a more open space, meeting less resistance. I followed it to the edge of the tree line to where it opened into a large meadow. The short green grass jostled back and forth, and dark red and purple flowers dotted the field. It lay spread out before me in the moonlight and all air in my lungs at that moment was pushed out completely in a quiet gasp. It was not my meadow. It was not the small sanctuary I had retreated to so often in Washington, but the sudden surprise finding of it shocked me. An old, familiar wave crept along the edges of me, ebbing against the hollow void and gently washing against the numbness. I moved slowly forward into the grass and sank down in the center.

I sat there with my legs collapsed beneath me and let my hands rest on the cool grass. I could feel the texture of the green blades as my skin pressed into them. The light, yet potent scent of the flowers mixed with the damp earth they grew from and intoxicated my senses. I ran my fingers over the fragile pedals and marveled at there softness. Under the clear night sky, I laid back and rested my head against the ground. The ebbing grew more pronounced, but washed over lifeless, unfeeling nerves. I could be lit on fire, and only vaguely notice the sight of the flames. I turned my head slightly to the open space next to me. It was bare and void. The wind slashed violently against the short blades of grass and my open hand, causing the thin blue thread around my wrist to jostle slightly. It was silent here, no movement or life except what the wind created.

It was not my meadow. It held none of the calming enclosure, or soothing sounds of the tall grass as it rustled against itself. My hand stretched out to the space next to me, and rested in the empty void. I stared at it for some time before closing my eyes against the growing wave that crashed against the hollow shell, and threatened to smash through. I could feel his skin under my fingers, I could smell his light, fresh scent, I could hear his voice uttering my name and I could see his face.

I removed my hand from the barren space next to me and found myself on my feet. I stood there in the clear moonlight with the wind tearing at my clothes. The wave swelled. It was different this time, it was saturated with anger and bitter, wordless questions. It built up inside of me and came to a new roaring height. His face flashed behind my eyes, his scent enveloped me completely, and my fingers burned with memory. A low growl bubbled in my chest and ripped from my mouth in a scream. I looked to the clear night sky above me, and screamed at the stars that looked down on me. I screamed until I felt my entire body contract with the effort. I screamed until my throat tensed. I screamed until there was nothing left. Purging every last ounce of it from my lungs. With a final shout, it cracked and faltered. I fell to my knees and my increasingly feeble shouts became sobs.

I felt it all come rushing back to the surface. Every want, every fear, every doubt, every hope. And I could feel him there next to me. I could feel his warmth, his calm, and I sobbed against the knowledge that he wasn't. My entire body ached against the knowledge that I could not be by his. As the sun began to burn along the horizon, I dragged my self to my feet and back to the place I had parked my truck. I drove back with the blazing sun gleaming against the deep tint of my windows. I arrived back to mansion we had purchased just outside of the city and entered through the garage. I moved aimlessly, blindly; until Alice's hand caught my arm, forcing me to face her.

Her face was rigid with a mixture of stern discipline and worry and her eyes burned into mine. With a deep sigh, they softened and her face fell to compassion.

"Emma…" she began. I could see her steel herself before continuing. "This has to stop, honey."

I gaped at her. Her lips pursed and her eyes locked on mine.

"Alice-"

"Em, this needs to end. Right now." she breathed. "I know you're hurting. I know what you're going through, but…."

She sighed again, and struggled to phrase her words correctly. She blinked and looked down at the space between us before returning to my gaze, determination softened with tact.

"You know how Bella and Edward met, how she was human when he came to find her?" She asked gently.

I nodded in understanding.

She took a steadying breath. "Maybe….there is the possibility that you could find the same."

I remained silent as I viewed her, never breaking contact with her eyes.

"Emma, it worked for them….Perhaps, it would for you." She added cautiously.

I felt my body go rigid, and my eyes hardened.

"Emma-"

"Alice." My breathing began to increase. "… I made a choice."

"I know, I know Emma. But…sweetheart…you could." she said.

"I'm dead." I whispered. "What could I…what could I possibly offer him? What sort of life could I make with him?"

"A happy one." she breathed, her eyes filled with earnest.

I stood back from her, too affected by her words to maintain any composure. Her hand reached for my arm again and gently wound it around the bend of my elbow.

"Emma…you love him." she said simply.

"I can't do that to him…" I voiced, sounding far away.

"Do what?" she whispered, shaking her head slightly.

"I…" I took a deep breath and looked up at her. Her eyes were sad and imploring

"He deserves more…." I mumbled.

Her eyebrows pulled in the center and her eyes grew with confusion.

"Emma…how on earth could he deserve more than you?" she whispered gently.

"He deserves to live." I looked her in the eyes, feeling the unshakable truth coming to the surface, waiting to be spoken. "He deserves to live a full, rich life."

She opened her mouth to speak, but I elaborated.

"He deserves a family."

Alice's mouth closed and her confusion mixed with sadness.

"He deserves to make a family of his own and watch them grow…. I can't give him that. I'll only hold him back from life. I'll only take that away."

Her eyes tightened with solemn understanding. But she leaned closer and held my eyes in hers.

"And what makes you think he won't find that with you?" she whispered.

"I can't give-"

"What makes you think he doesn't deserve the choice? Doesn't he have a say in what he chooses to do with his life? That he wouldn't choose anything that meant choosing you?" she implored.

I felt the muscles in my body slacken.

"Because it would be incredibly selfish of me."

She shook her head slightly.

"I would want that. I would want him to choose me. And when he did, I wouldn't let go. If he chose me… there would be no going back. It would be all or nothing. That's a bit much to ask of someone who has believed me to be dead the past six years." I concluded.

Alice regarded me seriously. "That's not selfish, Em…."

I swallowed hard and nodded slowly. "Yes, it is. In choosing me, he sacrifices every other path in life. I can't ask that of him…"

Her hand slipped from the crook of my arm and fell to her side. "And that's his right to choose as much as yours."

I backed slowly from her, wanting to retreat from the possibility that she proposed. It was too dangerous to consider. The temptation too overpowering to allow it to be an option. I couldn't allow him to make such a sacrifice, I couldn't allow myself to want him to.

Alice's earnest eyes fell blank and focused on something far from where we stood. With a slight gasp, her body went rigid.

"Alice?" I hedged.

Her blank eyes stared into nothing before snapping shut. Her head bowed slightly and she caught her breath, staring at the floor.

"Alice? What is it?" my mind raced. It jumped to all the worst conclusions.

She looked up at me, as if surprised to see me still standing there. Her face was dumbfounded and her eyes surprised.

"The wedding's back on."

A/N: Heavy stuff….. Oh, hey! There it is again, a review button! I challenge all of you, my dear lovely readers. Click that button. Click it with all your might and let me know what's on your mind. Don't be shy. It's just right there. Just right there. Let's push it.


	9. Chapter 14: Ghosts

Disclaimer: I do not own Twilight, the brilliant Stephenie Meyer does.

_I would stand here forever, burning in your arms. Burning in your fire, feeling no harm._

_For being in your flames is better that the cold of not, _

_and existing without pain, but also without plot._

_I would brave the fire, to be by your side_

_For without knowing as much as hurt, I may as well have died_

_In your arms I have reason, I have life_

_So burn I will, happily at your side_

_I would stand forever, burning in your arms,_

_resisting ash, and feeling no harm_

14: Ghosts

"Oh! Bella, Bella come here. Try this one." Alice held up a roll of navy blue fabric as Bella stepped toward her.

"Mmm… it really is your color isn't it?" Alice's face was solid with concentration, but she bounced with an enthusiasm that was both entertaining and frightening.

She had rounded us altogether, once again cultivating new designs for our wedding attire. I glimpsed a few unfinished sketches before she hid them away, tisking and wagging her finger at me. From what I had seen, I was petrified.

"Alice, I thought you had finished products already, why not just use them?" Edward proposed. I guessed he knew it was a futile question, but took his chances anyway.

She shook her head quickly. "Never look back, dear brother. And besides, Nessie has grown considerably since then."

"You've made several designs for her already, in various sizes!" he retorted.

"I will not have _my_ niece attend this wedding in outdated fashion." she answered sternly. I understood where the expression 'if looks could kill' may have originated from.

I saw him roll his eyes.

Jacob began to edge near the doorway.

"Ah ah ah! No you don't, Jacob Black. I'm not finished with you." she sang.

He halted and sighed heavily before facing her. "You're not even working on me right now. I'll come back when I'm need." he grumbled.

Her eyes narrowed to a point and her lips pursed into a tight line. I swear, I could just barely hear whine build in his throat.

"…..Go make your sandwich and _come right back_!" she called after him, already sprinting from the room.

Emmett folded his arms across his chest, a look of longing in his eyes as he stared at the space Jacob had recently occupied. Alice sighed agitatedly, crushing the pins held in her mouth.

"Fine. I already have your measurements. Just go." she muttered.

I made to follow Emmett, but a strong grip wrapped around my wrist, threatening to separate my hand from the rest of my arm.

"Not you." she said. "Sit."

Within days we were flying out to Denali. Alice constantly bustling, constantly speaking with someone, in some language over the phone. It was best just to stay out of her way. At our arrival in Anchorage International Airport, I received my first meeting with one of the two remaining Denali sisters. She was waiting outside, leaning against one of two dark vehicles. This must have been Tanya, Alice had mentioned her in great detail somewhere amidst her hurricane like planning. She was tall and thin, and _gorgeous. _Her light strawberry blonde hair fell impeccably in loose waves, and contrasted wonderfully with her alabaster complexion. I had never felt so small in my entire life. A young dark haired man stood by her, looking slightly wary. Was he _human_?

"Carlisle!" she sang, running her fingers through the man's dark hair. His eyes softened and drooped as they turned to her, all anxiety slipping from his body. Her hand traveled to caress the nape of his neck before coming forward to envelope Carlisle in a warm hug.

"Oh, it is good to see you again, sweety." She pulled away enough to see his face. "And under better circumstances." A small sad smile touched her features before disappearing, replaced again with a warmer one.

"Tanya." he replied warmly with a soft nod.

"Esme, how are you my dear?" she asked, embracing her next. She welcomed us all, leaving Edward, Bella, and Renesmee for last. She held out her hand to Nessie, whispering quietly that it was lovely to meet her again. There was a genuineness to her words, but a slight sadness in her eyes.

"My, you've grown…." she added with a slight chuckle.

She straightened herself then, inviting us to the vehicles.

"This is Hector, my lovely little ball of Spanish hotness." she purred, taking the man's chin gently in her hands. His eye lids fell slack again and he was lost in her eyes, his mouth forming a dopey grin. "He'll be escorting a few of you out to Denali with me." Her lips pouted as she spoke and she leaned in for a chaste kiss.

Carlisle cleared his throat gently before smiling warmly and greeting Hector. The ball of Spanish hotness became anxious again before opening the door for Esme. We had arrived a week before the day of the wedding to visit and Alice was busy handling the details of having our 'fierce' shipped to us in Alaska. She rode with me in Tanya's car, her eyes gentle and sparkling as she conversed with our hostess. Every now and then, she would look my way, only to smile warmly when I would catch her.

It had been nearly a decade since I had been here. Granted, I was far from where I had been stationed. But within such proximity, I may as well have been standing on that base. I may as well have been at the pier. I may as well have been on that trail. I could feel my chest tighten further than when we had arrived. The tenseness in the muscles of my back and abdomen crept into the muscles of my neck. Jasper tilted his head in my direction, a soft look of compassion gracing his features. I could feel a steady calm wash over me, dispersing the anxiety that choked me. It flowed fluidly down my spine and enveloped me, leaving me bathing in solace. Alice's hand came to rest on mine, and she smiled lovingly at him.

Tanya and Kate's home was a beautiful, large cabin far out in the mountains. Surrounded by large pines that rustled gently in the summer breeze.

"Kate will be returning shortly enough," Tanya explained when we had settled in. "she and William are off hunting in Canada."

"How is William?" Esme inquired.

"He's better… they had a few rough patches, but they've worked through them." Tanya said. "Oh! Thank you, Hector darling."

The handsome man came in, lugging the last of the suit cases. Jacob, Emmett and Edward behind him with bags and trunks in their arms. I had learned not to question the necessity of so much luggage, earning a death glare from both Alice and Rosalie.

Not long after that, Alice was having us 'pre-stage.' She had us dress out in her newly comprised creations and model them as she critiqued and adjusted with a discerning eye. She saved mine for last, I had not been allowed to peak in the sleek, glossy black box. I had to wait for it to be 'unveiled.'

"Alright. This….is my masterpiece." she said reverently, in soft tones as if in the presence of something sacred.

I could feel the anxiety creeping back in my stomach.

"The _cocktail dress_?" I laughed in surprise.

"No, this is one of my own creation…." she said, pride growing in her voice and eyes as she held it up to me.

It was a light cream color with a halter cut top and discrete dark blue accents. For a cocktail dress, it was surprisingly modest. Pleasantly surprising.

"Come on, come on! Put it on!" she ordered.

When I had finally situated myself in it, I turned toward the mirror to view her handy work.

"I am good." she said with a slight nod.

"Yes, you are…." I said, astounded. Staring back at me, stood a beautiful young woman. _Tanya who?_

Alice stood behind me, making minute adjustments, "Perfect."

And it was. It fit me perfectly, not just physically, but in style and taste. It showed off all the right curves, tantalizing, but still leaving something to the imagination. And despite the obvious 'sexiness' all such dresses are intended to exude, she had managed to make it humbly simple as well. A quiet, graceful beauty.

"I coordinated around your bracelet…." she said quietly. And now that I looked at the detail, the small, dark blue accents were navy blue thread, wound discretely through the fabric. Matching the very thread wound loosely around my left wrist.

"Alice…." I breathed.

"Told you you'd love it…" she added quietly, meeting my eyes and smiling gently.

Without have to even think of it, she was wrapped tightly in my arms. Thrown around her neck and shoulders, holding her securely to me. There weren't words available to tell her what it meant. Every ounce of gratitude and thanks, every shred of love was expressed in my embrace. With a sigh, her arms closed around me in response. I could feel my throat constrict and tighten against the flood of emotion in me and I wished I could tell her, but I just squeezed tighter.

"Emma, I love you honey but you're breaking me…" she breathed.

"Oh!" I exhaled, releasing her immediately and standing back slightly. "I'm sorry."

"It's ok…" she said wincing slightly and rubbing her neck. "You just can't give bear hugs, you're going to kill someone."

A small laugh escaped my lips. "Thank you, Alice." I whispered.

Her wince became a small, loving smile. "You're welcome."

I pulled her into my arms again, gentler this time, and held her as tight as I could without snapping her in half.

About mid week, we went hunting at our own discretion. Edward and Bella taking Jacob and Nessie, Jasper and Alice and Carlise, Esme, Rosalie and Emmett.

"The Grizzlies here are huge!" Emmett grinned, discussing his favorite treat with me. "Put up a pretty good fight too."

"I'll have to check that out while we're here." I said, amused at the way his eyes lit up.

"Hell we could go now, come on. Bet I can get a bigger one than you." he winked, smug as ever.

"Emmett, you _just _fed." I exclaimed.

His chest puffed up even more. "And?" he quirked an eyebrow. "Come on, your eyes are blacker than a damn lump of coal."

I laughed. "Alright….But I'll get the meanest one."

Both of his eyebrows raised. "You're on."

He raced off into the forest and I wasn't far behind. I pushed my legs as fast as they would take me, edging at his side. His forehead creased with effort as he glanced my way, trying to push faster.

"Come on, Barbie. Let's see what you've got." he growled.

I. Am. Not. A. Barbie.

"Fuck Barbie." I spat and shot forward, spurred on with the insult that burned in me.

"Oh! Think you're carrying a big pair, eh?" he laughed and pushed himself to catch up to me, he was on my heels. "Hope you can back that up."

"You going to talk all day or are we actually out here to do something?" I taunted.

"Oh I'll show you, little Em." he challenged. And I laughed.

His hand came forward and gripped my left shoulder. He wrenched down hard and I was stopped dead in my tracks, flung behind him and into the base of a large pine. It splintered around me and sent debris flying as I was burrowed deep into its center. I growled in frustration and shot up from the hole my body had created. I made to chase after him, but to my right, several miles away, I smelled it. Ahead of me, Emmett came sliding to a halt as he too caught the scent. I was closer.

"Ha!" I roared and launched myself toward it.

I could hear Emmett swear loudly behind me, and I laughed harder. We raced toward it, toward the heavy scent of fur, woods, dirt and blood. The salt and iron swirled decadently in the air and pulsed down my throat like liquid flames. It made me run faster, pulled like a magnet to its source. Pulling me with an intensity I had rarely felt. In the back of my mind, I could remember a similar event. I could remember the intense, mind-altering and all consuming need that had raged through me. That burned through my brain and body, torturing and enticing me. It too was an Alaskan grizzly. A Kodiak grizzly.

My step faltered. Emmett gained ground on me, racing to the same source I was. We were getting closer, careening toward the now pulsating gush that filled my ears. I could hear the air fill and be pushed from its lungs. I could hear its feet plod along lazily, splashing in water.

"All mine, little Em." Emmett growled.

I pushed harder, greedy want gripping my conscience. A feral, possessive growl bubbling up in the center of my chest. It was so close now, I was so close. And the nearer we came to it, the more I became lost in its lure. I ripped past low branches and sent obstacles flying. It was on the opposite bank of the river, pawing at the rippling water and focused on the fish that swam below the churning surface. A massive grizzly. It was going to die. And I was going to be the one to do it. Emmett's hand came down again on my shoulder, but I flung it off, focused wholly on what was in front of me. Emmett snarled and launched himself, and so did I.

My arms wrapped around the bear's wide, thick shoulders as I slammed into it, grasping them tightly and causing it to roll with me in my momentum. My hands moved to its neck, snapping it cleanly, my teeth were already at its throat, reveling in the soothing deluge of hot, thick blood that coursed down my throat. The heat from it radiated from my core, spreading throughout my body, to my finger tips.

"Oh come on! You didn't even try to fight it first!" Emmett whined. "Pansy."

I stood from the dead bear when I had my fill, the warmth settling cozily in my bones and calming the yearning in my throat and the pit of my stomach.

"Sorry, Em. But I couldn't put it through that hell." I said calmly. He scoffed. "Looks like I won."

"I let you win." he teased. "That's just a little guy, not even worth the effort."

"Uh huh, sure." I laughed.

"Pretty good though, huh?" he gestured to the carcass at my feet. "Boy, I missed them. Got spoiled being able to have them whenever I wanted when we lived here."

I looked at the unmoving mound of fur before me, remembering all too clearly that first night, that first kill. I looked at my hands and torso, seeing none of the blood or fur that had covered me that time. I had become less messy since then, more efficient.

"Yeah….I've had it before." I muttered.

Emmett chuckled to himself as the wind shifted and swirled around us, the river rushing next to us and the sun burning brightly, unrestricted by cloud cover.

"You're not hungry?" I asked.

"Ah, I'll get something on the way home." he said nonchalantly. His relaxed face suddenly livened with an appealing thought. "You know, you still owe me a rematch…."

I quirked an eyebrow at him.

"Race ya home." he challenged, his eyes beginning to burn with excitement.

I could feel a smile growing slowly, pulling at my lips. "Sure now that you've fattened me up…."

"Scared, little Em?" he asked quietly. "Pussy."

It was a last minute decision, one that Alice would only have seen just at that moment, too late to stop us. One that would bring my world too close to the edge and risk losing forever. A last minute decision decided by one little challenge. A decision decided by one, little, horribly crude word. As the "p" word fell from Emmett's lips, my head snapped in his direction, my eyes locking on his and burning with offense. I knew he didn't mean it to be so, he was so comfortable around me. So used to not seeing me so much as a lady, but as a buddy, that he didn't think twice about it.

But it burned in me none the less, and rashly forced my mind.

"Bring it, bitch."

His lips curled in a grin and his eyes blazed before narrowing in determination. We stood there for a brief moment, silently challenging each other, staring each other down. Then, we were flying. The balls of my feet barely kissing the ground as I ran. We were neck and neck again. I saw him glance at me from the corner of his eye.

"No cheating." I warned. In my front right pocket, my phone buzzed.

"Ignore it!" Emmett shouted.

It buzzed again and again, finally going to voice mail before I heard Emmett's ring tone sound. We raced north, back towards Denali. I had no clue where we currently were, but we had ran so far so fast in our hunt, that we could have been as far south as Anchorage. My phone buzzed again.

The wind swirled and whipped violent as it changed direction around us.

"Storm's coming." I mused.

"Stop trying to change the subject." Emmett breathed. "Just concentrate on getting your ass beat."

"Whatever you have to tell yourself, sweety." I said.

"You know it's true-" his words were cut off, and so was I. At that moment, the wind shifted again, sending us in the downwind path of a scent. It was light and warm, a mixture of tobacco and sun. Emmett came to a halt, his legs digging deep trenches into the earth as he stiffened and slid to a stop. His face was stunned with shock, and his eyes widened in surprise before tightening with need. And then just like that, he was gone.

"Emmett, NO!" I shouted as I raced after him, panic shooting through me as I willed my legs faster to catch him. His long, powerful legs carrying him quickly through the forest and up the mountain side. I wasn't going to be able to catch him in time. The scent was maybe ten miles off. I pushed myself to reach him, to stop him.

"Emmett!" I screamed, but he wouldn't hear me. He would be too consumed, too distracted and blinded by the pull of the scent to hear my words and register them.

He bolted forward, closing the gap between him and the object of his attention and I tried desperately to close the one between us. I charged after him, gaining ground as my phone buzzed again.

"Emmett, stop!" I pleaded. I was close enough now that if I lunged for him, I could get my arms around him. But if I missed, if he shook me off, I wasn't sure I'd have another chance. I pumped my legs faster and faster, reaching my limit. His back was tight and tensed, ready to spring. His head bent slightly forward in complete concentration. I was a little closer now, and I could hear it. A strong, steady rhythm beating calmly off in the distance. I had to act now, I had to stop him now.

I flung myself at him, wrapping my arms around his waist and locking my hands together. My feet came down and I dug my heels into the earth, trying with everything in me to stop him. A vicious growl ripped from his chest as his hand closed around my shoulder, trying to rip me from him. I held tightly, squeezing harder. But his other hand fisted and came down in a heavy blow to my clasped hands and an elbow slammed into the left side of my face. I lost my grip.

He was almost panting with his grunts, charging forward again after the calling pulse. It wasn't far now. Just below us, just beyond the cliff to the forest floor. I uprooted a small pine and threw it at him as I chased. It collided with the back of his legs, causing him to stumble slightly, causing him to lose momentum and giving me the time I needed to reach him. I ran into him, gripping around his chest as we fell to the rocky ground.

"Emmett! _Emmett! _Look at me, Emmett, stop! _Look at me!_"

He struggled violently against my grip, fighting and straining to inch closer to the source of his fury. Kicking and punching as his clawed against the ground. Wild grunts sounding from him. His massive fist beat at my ribs as we wrestled and struggled, inching closer and closer to the precipice. The slow rhythm was coming closer, slowly making its way toward us.

"Emmett!" I whispered desperately. Wrapping my legs around his thrashing legs, holding him tighter. He rolled to his stomach and crawled with me on his back. I arched my back, stretching my legs and squeezing tighter to bind him; grabbing one of his wrists and pulling it in to pin to his chest. The beats were getting closer. The pulse thudding in my ears. We wormed closer and closer, meeting the edge of the rocky cliff. His other hand reached forward, his fingers gripping the edge and pulling us closer. I could see over it now, to the ground below. I grabbed his forearm and pulled it free from the rock, pinning it behind his back.

Below us, the beats grew louder, and from the tree line emerged a man. His grey hair peaking out from his hat in wavy tufts. I froze.

He must have been in his early sixties now….it had been nearly a decade since I had seen him. He was walking slowly, but deliberately, a shotgun resting in the bend of his elbow. There were more wrinkles around his eyes and neck, his large mustache now snow white. The scent of chewing tobacco and warmth slowly swirled and washed over me, filling me. Not six hundred yards below me, my father walked along the edge of a river, casually scanning the area around me.

Emmett fought against me, pulling my focus back to him. Venom being spit from his gritted teeth as his grunted and strained. I squeezed tighter, my eyes flying back to my father. Emmett growled out loud in frustration and I could see my dad's head turn in our direction. With everything in me, I wrenched us back. Rolling on to my back and pulling Emmett atop of my chest, away from the edge, away from sight.

I held him there, burying my face in his wide shoulders and fighting against the barrage of his struggles. I held him as long as it took. I held him until I heard footfalls racing toward us. Until I felt strong hands wrap securely around his ankles, and waist. Until I felt hands gently pry mine from his wrists, and felt his weight leave me. I opened my eyes to the bright, sun filled sky. I rolled to my side and stood, peering over the edge to see the back of my father's form slowly disappearing around the bend.

Edward's arms suddenly wrapped around my waist, pulling me roughly away from the edge, but then suddenly stiffening and falling away. His eyes me mine, wide and surprised, his mouth falling open in a small 'o.' Understanding flickered across his face and his eyes became heavy with sympathy. I looked back to the spot my father had been, now empty. He was gone.

"_Emma…._"Alice quietly whispered.

I stood facing the river, looking down at the gravely bank as it bent around the tree line, searching through the openings between tree trunks, looking for movement. A gentle hand rested on my upper arm.

"Emma." she said again. There was no movement. Nothing but the rush of the small river, the slow swaying of tree branches and sporadic whistling of nearby birds.

I turned slowly and faced her. Her eyes were heavy with understanding and her hand slowly fell to mine, taking it gently and pulling me along.

"They're never going to stop, are they Carlisle?" I asked him that night when we were alone. "They'll always go looking for me, or be waiting for me to walk through the front door…."

He sighed heavily and leaned against the bookcase next to me. "You are their child…I don't imagine they could."

I sighed heavily as my head bowed forward. I didn't want them to suffer. I didn't want them to be tortured by the hell of losing a child any longer, nor did I want them to suffer the undying and useless hope of one day find me. Searching incessantly and hoping futilely. But that was all that was possible. That was all that was available to us. And I knew it was what they clung to. Living solely to find me. To bring me home, back to their loving arms.

But what closure could they find? There was no body to bury. No concrete evidence that I was gone and never to return. Only questions left unanswered and conversations not finished. Lives halted and paused awaiting my return to start back up again. To pick up where we left off.

"I know this is difficult." Carlisle said. "And I am sorry."

"What can we do?" I asked, my voice small and low.

He looked at me, his eyes grave. "Nothing."

I nodded solemnly.

"I'm so sorry, Emma. It a horrible and harsh reality that comes with this life….It's a miracle Bella has a circumstance that allows Charlie to remain in our lives without knowing too much."

A small, tiny fragment of a thought gleamed in me, an unformed, unarticulated glimmer.

"What if they didn't have to know too much… my parents. What if they didn't have to know what we are?" I asked. The fragment developing into a fully formed thought with every word.

Carlisle closed his eyes and his head bowed with regret. "Emma…No, I'm sorry but this isn't the same situation as Bella's. Her's is a rare and fragile opportunity. One none of us has had the fortune of knowing personally…"

"I'm not asking to go back to them, to be in their lives again….I'm just….I need to give them closure." I said. "I need to say goodbye. I need them to have the chance to say goodbye."

He looked me in the eyes and held them there for a long time, searching in mine.

"I can understand that." he said with a slight nod. "We'll think of something, Emma."

I took a deep breath, mulling over possibilities.

"But please know, we are bound by rules, not for the sake of having them. But to restrict damage to a minimum….It is a hellish ordeal I know, to be alive when loved ones believe us to be dead, and not being able to correct it. But can you imagine the hurt it would cause if they were to know?" He asked gently.

I looked into his eyes again.

"The damage that may come about by revealing yourself to them, or by simply letting them see you, alive and well….There would be too many questions, ones you could not answer." he explained.

I looked away and nodded again.

"We _will_ think of something, my dear." he said, bending his head to catch my eyes. I smiled back at him.

"I imagine Emmett is not very pleased with himself at the moment." He said with a sigh. "He's not one to dwell on mistakes, but he's never made a mistake that involved one of us so personally. He could use your forgiveness now, more than anything."

I nodded to him. "I know."

With that I left to find him. He wasn't in the house, if he were that upset he wouldn't want an audience. I went outside and searched through the surrounding trees. There was a loud crack in the distance and the top of a tall pine shook before leaning and toppling over.

He was there, pacing back and forth, his eyes scrunched in frustration and down cast. Rosalie stood near, her arms crossed loosely across her chest and her eyes concerned and sympathetic.

"Em…" she called to him softly. "This isn't your fault…it was just an accident, that could have happened to any of us."

He shook his head from side to side.

"Hey…" She moved in front of him, stopping his movements and gently placing her palm on the side of his face. His shoulders slumped and relaxed at her touch, and his eyes met hers. They were full of shame.

"I couldn't control it…." He whispered.

"It's okay…" She whispered and moved in closer, her thumb rubbing his cheek gently. "I know you, you would have stopped if you could. This is an accident, Em. You can't beat yourself up…."

He sighed heavily and let his head fall in her hand, bringing his up to hold it. I moved forward, letting them hear my approach. They both looked over to me, Emmett's eyes falling heavy with shame again and staring at the ground.

"Emma…I'm sor-" he began, but I cut him short.

"Emmett Cullen, don't you dare. You have nothing to be sorry for." I said.

He looked up at me, uncertainty painting his features. "I could have killed him." He said sourly. "I didn't know he was your dad…"

"Neither did I." I said gently. "It could have been anyone, Em. It was just wrong place and the wrong time."

"But it wasn't." He said, his face hardening.

"Emmett, I never thought I'd see him again in my entire existence. There was no way of knowing he'd be there. The last I had known, he and my mother lived in Kodiak, well south of where we were. There was no way of knowing."

"Your phone." He muttered. "It was Alice calling to warn us. She called me too, but I ignored it…."

"Emmett, stop right now." I said sternly. I moved forward, closing the gulf he was building between us, the separation he was creating between him and the world to hide away in his shame.

"I. Do. Not. Blame. You." I stressed every word, my eyes holding his. "So please don't blame yourself."

His eyebrows pulled in the center and he looked down again.

"You're my brother, Emmett. I could never hold that to you."

His eyes came up again, a small smirk growing on the corners of his mouth, setting faint traces of dimples on his cheeks.

"You did hold me…damn muscles, I'm going to have to start calling you big Em." he said.

I smiled at the relief growing in his eyes, his face brightening to the Emmett I knew. "I tried to tell you…" I said holding my hands up innocently. "I'm a beast."

He laughed and punched me in the shoulder before his smile faded slightly. He eyes glanced to mine once again. A silent search for reassurance that he was truly forgiven. I nodded to him and his relief returned.

We returned to the house and a few days later, I found myself watching Alice buzzing about the household, failing in her attempt to refrain from taking control of the wedding. She began arranging things, and quietly ordering us with instructions according to how she envisioned the wedding should play out. She offered to assist Kate in her preparations, slowly managing to take charge of decorating her hair.

"Alice, be nice…." I whispered to her.

Her lips formed a line of defiance, but she nodded and backed off. Slightly.

We found ourselves standing outside, under a clear bright summer day. The wedding party gathered in front of the base of two old trees who's branches had joined in the middle, entwining themselves. Alice had managed to decorate them with hundreds of small, white flowers, creating an archway. _Where did she find so many white flowers?_

Carlisle gave Esme's hand a gentle squeeze before taking his place directly below the archway, they had asked him to do the honors. All around me, couples stood together, taking each others hand and looking to the house. I glanced over to see Rosalie take Emmett's large hand and smile up to him. I heard him promise her another wedding soon and smiling at her.

Renesmee looked at Jacob standing next to her. Her eyes were pensive with thought, and her hand came to rest on his cheek. At her touch, Jacob's head turned to find her eyes. He took her hand in both of his, never breaking her gaze. Edwards teeth snapped together.

I clasped my hands in front of me as I turned to watch the open French doors on the porch, feeling the single strand of navy blue thread tied around my wrist. Tied around me. I looked down at it as my fingers felt along the three loops. A small musing thought passing through my mind.

The entertaining thought of allowing Alice to reign supreme with my own wedding. Letting her revel in complete control. The only thing of importance being Marc's hand in mine. It was an entertaining thought, given it's impossible chance of becoming a reality, I allowed my mind to wonder further, letting the image develop and flourish. My mother and father sitting on my side of the isle. My brother's from a previous life sitting behind them, arguing jokingly as they always did. Blume giving me a thumbs up. Alice, Rosalie, Bella, and Ness as my bridesmaids. My parents conversing quietly with Carlisle and Esme. And Marc standing with me under an archway just like this, all our loved ones joined together to witness our new life.

I smiled to myself. Letting the thought meld with the scene around me, and enjoying the warmth it brought. The quiet solace that rested in the pit of my stomach and the contentment that sank into my bones.

"William…" I heard Carlisle whisper.

I turned to see him nodding in warm acknowledgement of a tall man that stood in front of him, shaking his hand.

"Good to see you again, Carlisle." The man said in a deep, strong voice. He stood with his back to me as he spoke briefly with Carlisle. There was something oddly familiar about his long dark hair gathered at the back with a leather strap. There was something familiar in his wide shoulders. The man turned, shining in the bright sun, facing toward the house and anxiously awaiting for Kate to emerge from the open doors. This was William. And I knew his face. I knew him. But his eyes were different. They were a light, honey colored gold… not….Red.

He smiled widely at the movement coming from the doors, breathing deeply, but I remembered his face so differently. I remembered it as contorted with pain and torture. I remembered it as cold and unforgiving. I remembered his eyes being greedy, being hungry.

All around me, witnesses gasped and smiled, but all I saw was William. The man I had found in the woods on an island far south from here. The man who had stolen me away from the world as I knew it. Stolen me away from my parents, my brothers, from Marc. The man who had stolen who had stolen my life me. Who had broken everything.

**A/N: Yep, it was coming to this. Did you guess it was him? I'd like to know. Rough chapter for poor Emma, but better things are to come, I promise.**

**I apologize for the delay, but I did promise quality, remember? My reasons are work and being way too wrapped up in reading "So This is Progress" by Katie Marieeee. I highly recommend it. Check it out here: **

.net/s/6067368/1/bSo_b_This_is_bProgress_b

**As I mentioned before, I'm quite busy at the moment, but I will write when I can.**

**I love writing this, and I hope (quite a bit) that you enjoy reading it. If you value my sanity at all, or Hector the little ball of Spanish hotness, give me a shout out! There's the review button. I love you.**


	10. Chapter 15: Confessions

A/N: I know. I know. It's been 3 months. But I've been sailing around the Bering Sea, and I've been writing whenever possible. So I've comprised an extra long chapter for you all chalk full of exposition and other goodies. I hope I haven't lost you in my absence. Please know it was all for the good of the country. So without further ado, we return to Emma coming face to face with the absolute center of her demons. I humbly and joyously give you chapter 15. I hope you love it.

Disclaimer: I do not own Twilight, the beautiful Stephenie Meyer does.

We get some rules to follow. That and this, these and those, but no one knows.

We get these pills to swallow, how they stick in your throat. Tastes like gold.

Oh what you do to me, no one knows.

And I realize I'm blind, indeed a fool am I.

And I realize you're mine, indeed a fool am I.

I journey through the desert of the mind with no hope, I fell low.

I drift along the ocean, dead life boats in the sun. And I come undone.

Pleasantly caving in, I come undone.

And I realize I'm blind, indeed a fool am I.

And I realize you're mine, indeed a fool am I.

Heaven smiles above me, what a gift here below.

But no one knows.

The gift that you give to me, no one knows.

-Queens of the Stone Age

15. Confessions

William's smile widened even further as Kate approached him. He held out his hand for her, pale and shimmering in the bright, unrestrained sunlight. His teeth glistened.

"Emma?"

His wide, golden eyes beamed and softened at her touch, as she accepted his hand and moved to stand at his side. His eyes never broke from hers.

"Emma." Jasper whispered.

They turned now to Carlisle who stood before them, a book in his hands.

"What is it?" Alice whispered.

"I don't know…. Emma?" Jasper said quietly.

William stole glances at his bride, smiling contently and breathing deeply.

"Something's wrong." Jasper whispered.

"Alright…. Em, come with me honey." Esme called softly, her eyes appraising me quickly. We were moving, she was gently maneuvering me toward the house. Alice made to follow, but Esme shook her head ever so slightly and a gave a subtle look that told her to stay. We moved past the open French doors to the living room, her arm securely around my waist.

She turned to stand in front of me, placing both hands on my shoulders.

"Emma, sweetheart?" Her eyes were soft with concern and nurture but also sharp with calculation, diagnosing me and searching for the cause of my sudden trauma.

"Em, honey what is it?" She asked softly, placing a gentle hand on my cheek. It is odd the things that roam through your mind at even the most consuming and difficult moments. The random and carefree observations made at even the most gripping of times. It was odd that I was so touched by her motherly concern and protection. It was so strange and yet so appropriate for me to be so taken with it now. Her warm, comforting care began to thaw the shock that had frozen me. Her gentle words melted away the choking fright. For a moment, I felt my own mother.

"Em…."

"William." I said.

Her gentle features paused in confusion for a moment. "What about William?" she asked calmly.

"I know him…." I muttered flatly.

The confusion grew in her eyes. "How?" A small, befuddled laugh escaped her lips. "Whenever did you meet him?"

There was movement in the other room. People were returning into the house, laughing and talking freely. Giving congratulations and remarking of the beautiful ceremony.

"In Kodiak…." I muttered distractedly, my eye following the sounds behind the wall that separated us from them.

"In Kodiak?" Esme whispered, the confusion tightening her eyes. As the wedding party began to file past the living room, her eyes widened with understanding. William's deep voice carried closer and Esme spun around, holding me behind her and shielding me in a protective stance as he came into view. And again, through the haze of distress, I was touched by her maternal instincts for me. That they applied to me, that she thought of me as one of her children.

William laughed cheerfully as he spoke with guests and held his beautiful bride next to him. Esme's arm wrapped around my waist again and we were in another room, we were moving up stairs. Soon we were in a bedroom and she set me down on the corner of a bed. She bent in front of me, peering into my eyes.

"William is one who changed you." she said, more of a statement than a question. Her eyes were alight with concern and her lips were tense. "Are you certain?"

It was then that I realized I had never actually discussed the event of my change with her. She of course knew the general facts, but I had never spoken of it with her in detail.

"I was hiking." I said, looking into her eyes. I could remember the day more vividly than others. The important, most impressing moments had a way of remaining clear. Like they were burned into my new mind. A legacy of memories that summed up my previous life. "We had all gone hiking up the mountain behind our barracks. It had been such a beautiful day…. The first good weather in a while. I was in the back of the group, just behind Robbie Dorse."

I could see their faces. Smiling and laughing with each other, with me. I could see Dorse look back at me before disappearing around the bend.

"I fell behind because I was looking at the scenery. I was out of their sight for one second…." I said. Esme's eyes softened and her lips began to part.

"Then they were gone. I was knocked down and fell down the slope. And he….William was there." I looked up at her again. She wasn't breathing. Her eyes were strong with empathy and a growing anger. Her motherly protectiveness was being provoked with the thought of harm coming to one of her children.

"His eyes were different. They were red. I didn't know what that meant then, I didn't know he had attacked me. I thought I was being mauled by a bear and he was someone nearby. I thought he would go get help."

Esme remained perfectly still, except that her lips formed a tight line again and rage flashed in her eyes.

"After that, I didn't know exactly what I had become, only that I was dangerous." I shuddered, but laughed brusquely. "I ripped a bear to pieces."

One of Esme's eyebrows began to quirk slightly and small smile began to grow on the corner of her lips. She knew me too well.

"So I ran." I said, all humor disappearing from my voice as I remembered. "And I hate that, because I never ran from things. I hate to run from things, but with this….this changed everything."

Gentle comfort returned to her eyes and her hand came to my cheek once again.

"Then Alice came." I said and a small, quiet smile brightened her features.

"I remember." she said. "She told us about you and that we needed to leave for Alaska immediately." She laughed quietly. "She insisted that she approach you alone though, of course Jasper wouldn't have that. His wife alone with a newborn, trying to convince you to follow us. So she agreed to allow him to stay at a distance, down wind from you. She said she wouldn't need any assistance or protection, that you would trust her. But he argued that a little influence wouldn't be harmful."

I remembered meeting Alice there in the forest. I remembered trusting her hand held out to me, trusting her.

"That was Jasper?" I asked, completely surprised.

Esme laughed again. "Yes, but I don't think it was all his doing…." Her thumb gently rubbed my cheek and a small, sober smile grew in her eyes. "I think Alice was meant to find you." she said. "I think you were meant to be here, with us."

Something unspoken passed between us. Something words couldn't capture or convey, but that was understood. In almost every sense of the word, Esme was a mother to me. Without condition, she loved me and I knew it. Without condition, and in every sense of the word, I was her daughter.

There was movement on the staircase, and a deep voice assuring that he would be right back.

"I'll just go grab it, I won't be long." William told someone.

Esme spun around again, placing herself between me and the door.

"Esme, no." I said.

The door opened suddenly as the tall man with long dark hair stepped in.

"Oh! Esme, excuse me. I did not know you were in here." he laughed, smiling warmly at her. His eyes traveled from hers to rest on me and his smile faltered slightly. His eyebrows began to pull in the center.

"William." Esme said curtly, pulling his attention back to her.

"Pardon me, I just needed to collect a few things." He smiled warmly again before his eyes returned to mine, a slight confusion in them.

"I'm sorry, have we met?" he asked, moving toward me.

Esme moved between us and her eyes tightened. William paused in his step, taken aback by her seemingly sudden hostility.

"Esme." I said.

She moved forward slightly, tensing.

"Mom." I said, suddenly on my feet, my hand on her shoulder. She relaxed measurably and looked between us.

William's confusion grew. "Mom?" he asked slowly.

"Emma came to our family several years ago." she said tersely. "From Kodiak."

William looked at Esme, puzzled by her uncharacteristically harsh attitude. But at her words, something in his mind clicked and some elusive piece of information fell into place. His eyes returned to mine.

"Does she seem familiar to you?" Esme asked shortly.

"Esme, please." I said again.

"Emma." She said quietly, her eyes still on William. "Leave the room, please."

No. This was wrong.

"No."

"Emma." she said again. "Leave us."

"No." I said sternly. She turned to look at me. "I need to speak with him."

"_I'll_ speak with him." she said coarsely.

"No you won't." She turned to view me fully as William looked between us. "I won't run from this." I told her, my voice unable to raise above a whisper. My throat began to tighten.

Her lips formed a tight line and she breathed in deep, even breathes. "It's my job to protect you from these things…." she whispered.

"Protect me from what?"

Her eyes flashed to William again.

"From hurt." she breathed.

"Esme… he won't hurt me." I eased. "I need to speak with him."

Her eye brows pulled up in the center as she viewed me.

"I _don't_ _want to run_." I whispered.

She looked from me back to William, her eyes flashed with warning and a small growl bubbled in her chest.

"I'll be just outside." she told me, not looking away from him. She hesitantly moved from her shielding position between us and slowly made her way to the door. When it closed, I looked up to see William staring at me. His features had darkened gravely, mixed with some sort of awe. We stood looking at each other for a while, I didn't know quiet what to say to him, but wanted to say everything. I felt numb all the while consumed and flooded with a torrent of emotions. A flood of questions and statements raged through my head, yet all that passed my lips was polite etiquette. A product of how my parents had raised me.

"Please have a seat." I told him, though we were in his own home. My voice was low and hoarse.

But he did not move, he continued to view me.

"Your name is Emma…." he whispered.

"Yes." I answered, and his face fell heavier.

His head dropped and his eyes closed. "I do know you." he said. He looked at me again, pain and guilt heavy on his features. His shoulders seemed to cave under the weight of it, and slumped forward.

"I always wondered what your name was…." he breathed. "I wondered what all their names were, the lives I took."

He looked away from me then and sat down in the arm chair by the window. I could see the pain it caused him, the tremendous shame he felt…. And I wanted him to feel more. The torrent of emotions that raged in me howled up to the surface and drowned out the polite etiquette. It overthrew reason and hushed the shock that clouded me. My mind became clear and sharp, fuelled with the intensity that welled in me. Inside, a dam broke.

"My name was Emma Sophia Brammel." I said quietly and clearly. And I could see the weight grow heavier on him. There was a small part of me telling me to stop. Telling me what I already knew, that it was wrong to cause him more pain when he obviously felt enough. When it obviously weighed so heavily on him. But I pushed on. A selfish part in me wanted him to feel the full weight of the life I had lost. The full weight of a life that had a family and friends. That had plans and a future. The life he had taken. I wanted him to know what he had ended in every detail.

"I was born on April 20th 1987 to Maureen and Dennis Brammel, in Merced, California." I said, and felt the weight of my words, of my life, leave me and load onto his shoulders. I could see him breaking under them.

_Stop this._

"I looked a lot like the both of them…if I stood next to my mother, I looked just like her. But if I stood next to my dad, I was a spitting image…." He nodded slowly and brought his hands to his face.

I wanted to push further.

"I used to have his eyes."

William became still, and stared into nothingness behind his palms. His brow began to crease in the center.

"I had a nice childhood, did well in school… I joined the military after college, when I was twenty-two. I planned on going career, but I didn't know if I wanted to be in when I had kid-" My voice faltered and his head fell into his hands.

_Stop. You're hurting him._

He hurt me.

My breath came in deep and shaky. I could feel it coming to the surface then. The things that had meant the most. The heaviest parts of my heart that had been stolen from me screamed for vengeance. Demanded his pain in return.

"When I had kids…." I whispered.

A soft gasp and low moan of pain issued from behind his hands. His shoulders shook slightly. And as I bared down on him, I watched as he felt all that I did. I watched my pain physically manifest in him.

_It's his wedding day…._

I felt a pang of guilt burn through me. Of all days to confront him, of all the times to seek vengeance, this was the one day he should have pardon. That he should be happy.

And what of my wedding day? What of that life I had planned? Who else but him is responsible for that loss?

_It isn't your place….it isn't for you to seek revenge._

No? He is guilty for this crime, how is not fair for him to be punished?

_It's not for you to punish him._

He's a murderer.

_He is what you are…._

I never killed anyone. Even before I knew what I had become, what _he_ made me, that it was "our nature" to crave human blood, I abstained.

_It _is_ his nature, and you know it isn't easy. _

He had a choice.

I moved closer to him, looking down on him as he sobbed.

_This isn't you._

And I knew it. But I wanted him to hurt. I wanted to watch him suffer the weight of his choice. I wanted to watch him burn in the guilt of what he had done. To know the weight of the life he had taken, I wanted to forget right and wrong and seek justice for the crime committed against me. It was unfair. It had all been taken from me without my say.

He killed me.

_And yet you are here. Alive and breathing._

It's so unfair….

_But you are here. Alive and breathing._

I could feel myself bowing to the guilt building in me, rising slowly from the burning pain that blinded all else. Bending to adhere to right and wrong as always.

_A product of how your parents raised you…. _

And I crumbled. I looked down on William, his shoulders shaking.

_Be the daughter they were proud of._

I shook with the conflicting emotions swirling inside of me like a hurricane. The unanswered anger clashing with guilt and pride. Hurt confronted with truth. Past and present. William shuddered as my hand came to rest hesitantly on his head. At my touch, a deep sob rumbled in his chest.

"William…" I whispered.

He did not remove his head from his hands. He did not look up at me. I knelt in front of him and gently pried his hands from his face, taking it in both of mine. I pulled it up to face me and tilted my head to look him straight in the eyes.

"I'm so sorry…." he breathed.

I broke. Everything in me broke at his words, at the torment in his eyes, the anguish that crippled him. I fell to the pain that we both knew so intimately. It didn't matter what I told him of my old life. He didn't need the details, he knew them already. He carried them with him.

"I know." I said, my voice catching. "I had plans….There was so much that I hadn't done yet." I whispered, and his eyes closed shut again. "But I'm alive… I'm here now, and I've done so many things I wouldn't, couldn't have before."

He looked at me again, his eyes heavy.

And as much as it pained me, I knew my words were the truth. It was the hand I was dealt, and I had to make best of what was given to me.

"What you've done… is done." My voice shook under the effort to restrain the anger that demanded retribution. "There's nothing that you or I can change about it, William…but I'm here. I have a family, I have life. It is _not_ what I had planned for, but…it is life."

"William, I will never be able to forget. And it will be the hardest thing I've ever done to let go…. But I can forgive." I said hesitantly, not wanting say it. Not wanting to bring it to light, to have to face this part. But I didn't want to run, did I? I had to face all of it, every facet if I were not to run.

His eyes returned to mine, filled with even more guilt. "I don't deserve your forgiveness…." he whispered. "I don't deserve any of their forgiveness."

I took a deep breath. "I can't speak for the others, William. But I _do_ have say over this. If anything at all, I have the _right_ to forgive you."

His head fell from my hands and to his own again and he drew in a massive, shaky breath.

"It's why we called off the engagement…." he whispered. "Kate and I."

He looked up again, to my eyes. " I had promised her, that wherever she went, I would follow. That I would renounce my old ways, and adopt the lifestyle she and her sisters had and become a 'vegetarian'. "

He looked away again, suddenly more ashamed at his memories.

"Then, there she was…she couldn't have been more than thirty. Just walking her dog along the path, in the wrong place at the wrong time…. I suppose it was from habit, but there wasn't even a second thought. Her blood was just so appealing, that it stole over me. She became the intended prey, rather than the elk I had been stalking…." he recalled, his eyes burdened.

"She wasn't the only one…" William gasped and hung his head. "I couldn't go back to Kate. I couldn't face her….I had failed. And so I fled. I ran south only find water. I swam to the island, where you were, looking to hide in my guilt. But then at worst the part of it all, in my darkest hour, there you were…. What were you doing out there?"

"I was hiking." I answered. "My friends and I had been planning it for a week."

His eyes closed again. "I am so very sorry….I am so, so very sorry. You reminded me of her, just walking in the woods. Which I tried to use, to try to convince myself into not doing it. But then there was a brief moment of opportunity, you were separated from your group for just a second…and instinct took over."

He opened his eyes again to look directly into mine. "I didn't finish. I was so torn by guilt and desire that I ran from you before your heart had failed. There was still blood in you, you were still breathing…."

I was shaking ever so slightly, recalling that sunny day at the bottom of the mountain as he spoke. I remembered my blood caked with dirt on my hands and face. I remembered how his face changed. Then the blackness and fire.

"Alice saw me." I said. "She found me not long after. She had a vision of me in Alaska, then with them in Forks."

He looked me straight in the eyes again, his features heavy with shame and regret. "I will never be able to atone for my sins… for the pain I've caused you. The pain I've caused your loved ones."

"But that's what forgiveness is, William. Atonement." I countered.

"In your eyes, perhaps…but not in God's…." he breathed.

"Perhaps not. ..But we all sin, don't we? All we can do is seek penance, and do our best with the time given….and we have an awfully long time."

He laughed briefly and nodded his lowered head. "That we do."

I took another deep breath. The words were so weighty, and so difficult to bring to the surface. But they needed to be said. He needed to hear them, and I needed to say them.

"I forgive you." I whispered.

He closed his eyes tightly, grimacing against the pain, against the relief.

"You have Kate, William…You've found happiness with her, you should have that." I said quietly.

His eyes opened and fell with disbelief, and the guilt racked him again.

"We have second lives with this." I told him. "Second chances….You deserve to be happy with her. You deserve to be happy."

He exhaled deeply.

"What's done is done…." I whispered, dropping my eyes from him. "And your wife is waiting for you downstairs."

I felt his eyes on me, but I couldn't meet them.

"Emma Sophia Brammel…." he whispered. "I will never forget your name."

I swallowed hard. "Cullen, Emma Sophia Cullen."

His hand came under my chin then, and gently forced my eyes to meet his. "I truly am sorry for what I've done to you…."

I simply nodded.

His eyebrows pulled in the center and his voice was low, but sincere. "I wish only the best for you, Emma. You deserve to be happy, too. Far more than myself."

He stood and slowly made his way to the door, pausing with his hand on the handle.

"Thank you." he breathed.

As he exited, he was met with a stern looking Esme. He paused briefly, and they looked each other in the eyes, some understanding passing between them. To me it appeared Esme had conveyed the fact that she _would_ kill him if ever he so much as breathed wrongly around me. And it seemed to me he agreed.

We kept the event from the knowledge of the rest of the guests, not wanting to spoil Kate's wedding day. Not long after that afternoon, we bid our goodbyes to the Denali clan. To Tanya and her Spanish ball of hotness Hector, and Kate and William. We lived for some time in Maryland, settling just outside of Baltimore.

"I personally think you would be absolutely decedent in those." Alice remarked at a pair of too-high heels as we passed a shop window.

"No, Alice."

"What? It's not like you'd _break_ an ankle." she said, knowing exactly what I was thinking.

I laughed. "Still no."

"Oh, you're no fun." she teased.

It was a cool fall evening, with a light, crisp breeze blowing down the busy street and rustling the trees that lined the walkway.

"Emma…." Alice edged.

"Hmm?"

"I want to talk to about Marc." she eased.

I froze.

"You've kept an eye on him." I said, and she nodded.

So many things shot through me. So many emotions and so many thoughts.

"He's okay?" I asked, feigning calm.

"He's fine." she said, guessing my concern at her sudden mention of him.

"But I wanted to know…. I know what you decided in California. You wanted him to be able to live a normal, happy life. You wanted him to let you go. But you haven't." she said, gently grabbing my wrist and touching to the blue thread wrapped there.

I looked at the thin string I had removed from his jacket that night in Alameda. "It's not like I can, Alice." I said thickly.

She hesitated before continuing. "It's so easy for him either."

I looked at her, puzzled.

"He did move on…in a way. He's happier than before, living, but…I think he's still tied to you." she said, her eyes not leaving the thread.

"He's dated. Had a serious relationship, but…." She dropped my wrist and looked to the ground before returning her gaze to mine.

"I can't see everything, Emma. Especially when it comes to the two of you as a pair, but I can see when something is inevitable, in whatever haphazard way it manifests." she said. "I watched him, waiting to see if what I've done now would be justified. To see if you two were tied together, if your paths would always join again somewhere down the road…."

"Done what, Alice?" I asked, her words provoking concern.

"I had to know for certain…." she said, her eyes far off in the distance.

"Alice, what have you done?" I asked again. My concern growing.

Her eyes met mine then, a bright light growing in them. "You can be so stubborn…."

"Alice-"

Just then the breeze blew from behind me, carrying the loveliest, light, fresh scent. Alice's eyes grew soft as they stared into mine.

"I saw what you couldn't." she explained.

My head had automatically began turning toward the source of the familiar scent as my eyes stayed on hers, breaking from them at the last second. It was unmistakable, but so unexpected. I slowly turned to face what physical evidence told me would be there, but I couldn't believe it. And my heart and mind snarled at the cruelty of this evidence. Not wanting to trust in the hope and light that blossomed in me with its touch. Because it couldn't have been true.

My breathing began to increase and the scent grew stronger, enveloping me. And there down the walkway, his eyes bore into mine. Like fiery sapphires that shinned brightly as the morning sun as it breaks over the horizon. Marc stood stalk still as his lips parted slightly in disbelief. His eyes burned wildly, staring straight into mine. And I felt them pierce directly to the center of me, I felt them see everything in me.

His feet slowly began to carry him toward me. And without thinking so did mine. I vaguely noticed when I dropped the bags I had been carrying. I moved toward him, feeling myself being pulled rather than under my own control. I could feel something building inside me, growing with every step closer to him. My breathing came in slow, and shallow. He was right in front of me now. His eyes never left mine as his hand came to my face, the tips of his fingers resting on my cheek. His eyebrows pulled in the center, a mix of confusion and wonderment.

"Emma?" he breathed.

**A/N: Yes! Closure with William, forgiveness and the Momma Bear in Esme! And yes, the sweet, sweet reunion with Marc. Whatever would we do without Alice? I really do hope y'all loved it, and again, I apologize for the extended wait. But alas, there is no internet in the Bering Sea. I love you all. Please leave me some sugar. There's the review button.**


	11. Chapter 16: Paths

**A/N: Hello, my darlings. Yes, yes Marc is back. (Contented sigh….) And for that reason (and because I love you) I have been hard at work to comprise an extra long chapter full of very much needed and long overdue Emma/Marc time. Enjoy!**

**Disclaimer: I do not own Twilight, it's characters or anything to do with it. Stephenie Meyer does, and I love her for it.**

I could follow you to the beginning, just to relive the start

And maybe then we'd remember to slow down at all of our favorite parts

All I wanted was you, all I wanted was you

-Paramore

16: Paths

A million things passed across his face and flashed in his eyes. A million questions, a million emotions. I could identify each and every last one of them. I could see the shock and disbelief in his eyes as his finger tips ghosted over my ice cold cheek. I could see the confusion and absolute acceptance, the hurt and relief as he wondered why I had hid away all these years. How I could be standing before him now on a busy street in Baltimore when I had been dead to the world. And the dismissal of it all for the sheer fact that I was there.

I could see it all in his deep blue eyes. A sharp exhale pushed from his lungs and his heart rate increased.

"Emma…" he breathed, the last syllable of my name hushed and hanging from his lips.

In some back corner of my mind, I remembered Alice. I looked quickly behind me, instantly missing the contact with Marc. As urgently as I could, my eyes swept the street and sidewalk behind me, not finding her anywhere. Alice had gone, taking the bags I had been carrying. I turned back to Marc, his hand still hanging in mid air from where it had rested on my cheek. Instinct told me that we needed to move away from here. I didn't know where, only that we should not be in public. I was here in front of him, for the first time in a decade, alive and breathing. And he would need an explanation. It was too late not to. There was no hiding from this, no way of slipping away and melding with the shadows of the tall buildings that surrounded us.

I looked directly into his eyes, focusing on them entirely. Deep and clear, open for me to see to the very depths they held. I gently raised my hand and took his, hesitantly, and never breaking my gaze from his. My fingers slowly and softly closed around his, holding them carefully as I peered into his eyes. Silently seeking his trust and permission to lead him away from here.

I slowly brought our hands down and gently tugged. Without any effort, his feet moved in my direction. Again, I begrudgingly broke our gaze to search around us. But where would we go? All that was around us were businesses and apartments. There were too many people, walking up and down the sidewalk, entering and exiting shops, idly staring at items perched in windows. Traffic buzzed passed us on the busy street, the occasional horn sounding impatiently. The impending conversation, the delicate explanation to come was not one to be held in some side street or coffee house. But that was all that surrounded us now. Two blocks down, I could see the top of my truck, parked along the bustling sidewalk.

I turned back to Marc, his warm hand still in mine. His eyes still full of wonderment and confusion, and still fixed on me.

"Come with me." I breathed.

My hand squeezed a little tighter around his as I pulled him up the walkway, his warmth burning into it and radiating up my arm. I pulled the passenger door open and turned back to him. It was only then that I wondered if he would be willing to follow me this far. If he would trust me enough. I stood with the door open and my hand still securely wrapped around his. My breath was coming in slow and shallow as I searched his face and eyes once more for his permission. But without hesitation he moved forward and slid into the seat. We stared at each other for a while longer before I slowly closed the door and made my way over to the driver's side. My breathing came in deeper as I slowly climbed into my seat, holding his gaze.

There were rules to be followed. There were secrets that were not mine to tell. But how was I to explain my existence to him now? How was I to explain to him how I was here with him at this very moment, seemingly alive and breathing and not having aged a day since he had last seen me? How I appeared exactly the same as I did a decade before? He deserved an explanation. He deserved answers. But how much would I be allowed to tell him? And how much would I be able to keep from him?

"There's something you need to see." I breathed, and turned the ignition.

We drove through the city streets, heading west toward the open lands, toward my home. His breathing and heartbeat slowed, becoming more controlled, but he continued to gape. The shock and surprise that had plagued his features and consumed his eyes had began to wane, and given way to a more controlled stare, filled with now coherent questions.

"It's really you…." he asked quietly. His eyes locked on me, almost as if he were waiting for me to disappear.

"Yes." I said.

He was very still in his seat, his breathing deep and slow.

"How?" he breathed, his voice barely audible.

We had driven past city lights, past residences and had now reached a more remote location. I stared straight ahead, my eyes on the broken yellow lines that dotted the two-lane highway. What was I supposed to tell him? If Alice had orchestrated our meeting, as I now would have bet that she had, did that mean I could be completely honest with him? Was I to answer every question truthfully, without restraint or hesitation? Was I to divulge every last detail of what I had become and subsequently of our kind? Was I to break the rules? Edward had. Edward had broken the rules just the same, and revealed the nature of his existence to Bella when she was human. And consequently drew the attention of the Volturi.

From my understanding, there would not be much they would trouble us for. They had wrongfully accused my family before I had come to them, and were exposed for their corruption. But what if I broke the rules now? Would I be held accountable? Would he? Marc remained still in his seat and continued stare, awaiting my answer. His breathing became increasingly shaky, but still deep and slow as he maintained control. I slowly pulled over to the side of the road and turned off the engine.

"Marc?" I asked quietly.

"What?" he breathed.

He deserved an explanation. He deserved an answer. For ten years he walked through the world with the knowledge that I had disappeared. That I had died and moved on from this earth only to be sitting here now, in my truck, talking to him.

"Give me your hand…." I whispered.

His face became controlled, focused. His breathing was deep, and unwavering. And slowly, but certainly, he raised his hand and offered it to me, palm up.

I reached out hesitantly. He couldn't have noticed how hard and unyielding my skin had been earlier. He would have mistaken the cold of my skin for the crisp fall evening. He couldn't have known that it was as ice because blood did not course through me to warm it. And when he were to notice now, what would his reaction be? If he were to know the truth, what could I expect him to say?

My fingers lingered centimeters from his. I could feel his heat resonating in the air and burning into me. Finally, with one last intake of breath, I closed the distance. I gently placed my hand in his, not removing my gaze from them. Not wanting to see the recognition on his face, in his eyes.

"Do you feel how cold my hand is?" I whispered.

"Yes." he replied.

I gently dragged my finger tips along his open palm.

"What else do you notice?" I asked, my voice barely audible.

His brow creased, and a slight confusion returned to his eyes.

"Do you remember what color my eyes were, Marc?" I breathed.

His breath was steady, deep and slow. I could feel his eyes on me. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see his creased brow begin to pull up in the center.

"Blue." he whispered.

He deserved an answer. He deserved the truth. Slowly, I raised my eyes from our clasped hands to meet his. In the dim light, I hoped he would see the difference in them clearly enough to understand. To realize that my existence was for reasons beyond his probable guesses.

"And what color are they now?" I asked quietly.

He stared into my eyes intently. And before he could react, before he could register what he was seeing, I took the opportunity to burn this moment into my memory. To etch into my brain the feeling I had being here with him, just sitting with him and looking up into his eyes. To have him looking into mine. His scent had filled the cab of my truck and drowned me. I wanted to seer it into my mind, and remember how it felt. If he were to react badly, if the truth would be too much for him to bare, I would at least have this moment. And with perfect clarity, I would replay it over and over. Forever.

His eyes moved over mine, examining them. His brow creased slightly once more and his eyes began to roam over my face.

"Did you get contacts?" he asked.

Contacts?

"What?" I asked, suddenly confused. "No, Marc…."

I looked into his eyes, and steadied myself. We had moved in closer in our conversation. I could feel his breath wisp over my face, his hand was still gently clasped around mine. I took a deep breath and closed my eyes.

"Marc, I…. I haven't aged a day since you last saw me… I haven't aged since you knew me in Kodiak." I whispered slowly.

I opened my eyes to see his roaming over my features, taking in my words and struggling to understand them.

"I haven't aged a day in ten years." I said.

His breath was still slow and deep, his heart still beat slow and calm and he looked me straight in the eyes, his brow still slightly creased. Gently I moved his hand closer to me and pressed it to my chest, over my heart.

"My heart has not beat in ten years…." I whispered.

He stared at our hands, pressed tightly to me, and then back to my eyes. His lips parted slightly and the crease deepened between his eyes. We stared at each other a moment longer. I could see him piecing together my words and trying to make sense of them. I could see the confusion in his eyes. Understanding what my words implied, but not seeing how they could be truthful.

"I died, in Kodiak." I breathed.

"But…" he whispered. His shook his head slightly. "No."

"Yes….I did." I nodded.

"But you're here." he breathed.

I nodded again.

"You're here." he said again, louder.

I looked at him for a long time, and then down at our hands, clasped over my heart. He deserved an answer.

"There's something you need to see." I whispered again and opened the door.

Confused, he followed suit. I walked around to his side and took his hand again. It was in the early hours of the morning. Soon, the sun would begin to rise. It would be a clear, bright morning with no clouds to obstruct the fresh light. Soon, he would see.

"I don't know how else to explain to you….Something happened, in Kodiak." I told him. "I'm not the same."

I looked up at him, he was still lost in my words, trying desperately to make sense of them.

"When I died…. How I died…. I changed." I said.

"Emma," he breathed, "I don't understand."

The sky was getting lighter, glowing at the horizon and heralding the sun's rise.

My breathing was becoming more and more shallow, tasting the dew on the ground around us, and wisps of his warm scent. He deserved to know. At the very least, he deserved some part, some form of the truth. I took another breath, deeper this time, and brought the words to my lips.

"I'm not…human." I said. "Not anymore."

He continued to look into my eyes, his hand was still wrapped warmly around mine.

"How can you not be?" he breathed.

I looked down at the ground between us.

"Emma." he breathed, leaning down to meet my eyes again. I took a deep breath.

"There are some things in this world…some things you think only exist in movies…that actually do exist. That are real." I whispered.

The horizon burned lighter and lighter as the sun climbed higher along the earth, and soon it would break over the line and cast our surroundings in its light. I took a step back from him, letting go of his hand. His eyes followed me as I removed my jacket and began rolling up my sleeves.

"Emma.." he began.

"I'm not the same, Marc." I said.

Overhead, the sky lightened to a light blue. He took a step toward me.

"I was changed."

He kept walking toward me.

"What I am now…" I said, "I'll be forever."

Behind me, the sun broke over the horizon, sending blinding rays of light over the field we stood in and catching the many facets of my skin. Thousands of small rays of light refracted off my arms and neck and shone brightly. I could see them reflecting off me, and onto Marc. I could see them shimmer in the reflection of his eyes. He stopped mid-step and his eyes widened.

"I'm not the same." I said again.

His lips parted and his wide eyes roamed over me, taking in every bit of exposed skin as it shimmered and gleamed in the fresh morning light. I studied his face, searching his eyes for any sign of horror. Waiting to see the first traces of fear touch his features. But none came. He just stood in front of me and took in all he could see. After a long moment, his eyes returned to mine. Burning brightly in the direct sunlight and burning with something else that seemed like determination. He had began breathing again, slow, deep and controlled, but his heart raced. He looked directly into my eyes and slowly placed one foot in front of the other. Slowly, he came to stand in front of me, only inches away. His hand came up to rest on my cheek just as before. His eyes followed his finger tips as they carefully ghosted over my skin, marveling at the effect of the sun.

My breathing was shallow and uneven as I looked up at his face, as I felt his fingers leave trails of fire against my skin.

"How…..?" he breathed.

"Marc, I'm…." my voice hitched.

I didn't know how to proceed further. I didn't know what to tell him next. His eyes searched mine, looking deep into them as his palm rested low on my jaw. His fingers rested on my neck and his thumb brushed along my cheek, resting at the base of my ear. His face hovered above mine as he examined my features, his warmth enveloping me with such proximity. For years, I dreamt wide awake. I would lose myself in fields of swaying grass, imagining ordinary moments between us. Escaping into illusions of an impossible future, an eternity of finding all those things dearest to me. Living in the revelry of the contentment they brought. And now, out of some miracle or cruel irony, I stood in an open field as a soft crisp breeze gently wound its way through my hair. The sun rose steadily in a clear, unobstructed sky just as I had always imagined. And he was here. By some divine miracle, or cruel fate, he was finally here with me.

And yet still, we were separated. Still, something stood between us, holding us apart. When I told him, when I found a way to explain, it would give an name and face to our obstructer. When I told him finally, it would dash away this moment, just as I had finally found it. I looked deep into his clear eyes. Allowing myself to be pulled in entirely by their gravity. Allowing myself to fall into them and stay a while before I uttered words that would cast this moment away. Words that would cause it to vanish and slip into the ether. To become another impossible illusion.

His eyes were pleading. They silently voiced every question and need for an explanation. His blazing thumb trailed along my cheek again. I steeled myself knowing the time to come was inevitable. Selfishly praying I could make this moment last. That I didn't have to lose him all over again. I wished, with everything in me that it didn't have to be this way. After all, how could I expect him to stay.

My eyes roamed over his face, taking in how it had aged. His dark, wavy hair falling carelessly on his forehead, his perfectly straight nose, his beautifully full lips and the dark fire of his eyes. I felt it seer into me. The image imprinting itself on every surface, on every last layer and blazing with clarity. With one last breath, I took his face in both my hands.

"Marc…." my voice was hushed, not wanting to speak the words I willed it to.

"Marc, I…" My voice broke and fell away. It shook under the pressing weight of the impending devastation.

His hand moved up my face, his finger tips tracing lines again, feeling along the planes of my cheekbones.

"You died." he whispered.

I nodded once.

"But you're here now." he breathed. "You came back…"

My breath was drawn in deep and trembling.

"I never left." I whispered.

His eyes tightened slightly, the same glimmer of determination flashing in them as before, steeling himself.

"What happened in Kodiak?" he whispered.

His heart was still pounding, and his breathing increased slightly. My eyes dropped from his, and my hands slipped from his face. My finger tips lingering along the edge of his jaw before falling in front of me.

"I'm afraid if I tell you… you'll run." I whispered.

The crease between his eyes returned and his breathing deepened.

"Why would I do that?" he asked.

His hand dropped to mine, holding it up so that it caught the light. He turned it slowly so that it shimmered and twinkled.

"I haven't ran yet." he said quietly.

I watched as he slowly turned my arm in the light and brought my eyes back to his. They were earnest and pleading.

"Tell me…" he said

His eyes were so certain. So sure of his words, so assured of himself that he could bare whatever I told him. He had no way of knowing what he sought. He couldn't possibly have been so positive that he could withstand it. But he stayed now, even as I glowed like a giant human disco ball. Through the absurdity and shock of it all, he had not ran yet. He had moved closer.

"Tell me." he pleaded again, his voice barely a whisper. "Why did you leave….?"

"I didn't want to leave." I said firmly. "I didn't want this, I wanted…"

I looked down at his hand gently clasped around mine. I slowly wrapped it in both of mine, my skin absorbing his warmth.

"Do you believe that there are some stories, some fictions… that are based in truth?" I asked quietly.

I could see him nod silently, willing me to continue.

"There was a man, named William. He found me that day on the mountain. I had been…attacked. I thought it was bear….I thought I was being mauled, but …it was him."

I looked up to see Marc's face. "He was like how I am now…and when he attacked me, I became like him."

Marc's eyes tightened with questions. His lips began to move, to voice his need for elaboration, but I continued.

"When woke up, after I had changed…" I remembered the burning. I remembered being lost in invisible flames as the change took place. But I thought to leave that part out.

"My heart had stopped. And I was extremely sensitive to everything around me… I could taste the air as I breathed it in, I could hear the tiniest, faintest sounds very clearly… and I could see for miles in the dead of night." I told him, watching his face carefully.

"I could run, faster than the wind without tiring…I thought it was Heaven.

I could smell….everything. From miles away…."

I kept my eyes on his, waiting to see what I had warned him of. Waiting to see what I feared the most.

"I could smell….blood."

Marc's attentive eyes crumpled in confusion.

"Your blood?" he asked slowly.

"No."

The crease between his eyes deepened.

I stared into his eyes, and felt my face fall solemn.

"Miles away from me… there was a bear." I edged. "I could smell it. I could smell its blood…I could hear it pumping, pulsating in the air…."

His eye's stayed on mine, carefully analyzing my words.

"It became everything. The only thing, in the entire world….My throat burned. As if someone had shoved a hot coal in my mouth. It was insane how much it burned… and how badly I…. How badly I needed it to stop." I said.

"I wanted the blood." I whispered.

Marc did not move. His breathing slow and steady, but shallow. His face was controlled and his eyes were still on me.

"Marc, do you understand what I'm telling you?" I asked in a whisper.

All at once I wanted him to say yes, and all at once I wanted him to say nothing at all. I wanted him to know the truth, but was terrified of what that knowledge might bring. There was a sudden want in me for him to know exactly what I had become, exactly what I was changed to, that warred with my fears. I wanted him to see all of me, to have nothing hidden, nothing kept from him. So that he would know the truth. And yet I didn't.

I watched his face carefully, the blood had began to trickle down and drain from it, causing him to be a shade paler. His breathing faltered slightly, hitching quietly. But he kept it slow, and shallow, controlled. His face was a mask of controlled calm, but his eyes were clear. I could see in them his effort to remain calm and restrain a growing panic. I could see the pieces being placed together, I could see every word I spoke take effect. One by one. I could see him understand.

The inevitable had come, as I knew it would. Our time had ended. Just as our paths crossed once more, they set off again in different directions. Never intertwining, never interlacing, always separate. I nodded slowly, dropping my eyes from his. I couldn't blame him. I could never blame him. Our hands were still folded together. At any moment, he would leave, and the wonderful burn his warmth provided would linger for only just a while before my skin would grow cold again. Unable to retain the heat.

But his hands stayed in mine. He didn't move. He must be frozen with shock.

"Can you smell my blood?" He whispered, so very quietly.

"Yes." I admitted.

I closed my eyes, not wanting to see him leave. He could take my truck if he wanted. But I didn't want to see. If anything, I didn't want that image.

I felt his hands slip from mine.

Without my permission, beyond my control, my breathing hitched and a small, sharp exhale pushed from my lungs. I closed my eyes tight against the feeling in my core. It felt as if everything were draining from me, like a tide going out. Being pulled out further to sea, to build into a very familiar swell.

He had not left just yet. I could still feel his body heat in front of me, burning through me. I could hear his heart thudding loudly against his chest, and his breath moving in and out of his lungs. And of course, I could smell him. Light, fresh and mellow. It swirled around me lazily, and wrapped me in its caress. I sank in it as the swell built somewhere off in the distance.

But then the fire from his body came closer, burning into my bones, moving through me in pulsating currents and I felt his warm hands tentatively cup either side of my face. They pulled it up, willing me to face him.

"Look at me." he demanded softly.

Slowly, and hesitantly, I opened my eyes.

His eyes were slightly wild. I could see a war between fear and his control raging behind them. His hands trembled slightly, but he was relatively composed. The same glimmer of determination I had seen in his eyes earlier returned, and he looked me squarely in mine.

"All this time..?" he breathed. His creased brow pulled up in the center. His mouth opened to speak, but it closed again and he swallowed hard.

"I understand…if this is too much." I said, my voice thick and low. "I would understand….if you left now. If you wanted to put it all behind you….forget."

His eyes flashed and hardened slightly. His head began to shake from side to side.

"I don't want to leave…" he breathed. "I don't want to leave you… I feel like you're going to disappear."

His eyes were so certain. So sure of his words. His hands so steady on me.

Music started playing. Low and clanky.

_What_ the fuck?

Marc jostled slightly, his eyes traveling down to my right pocket.

"Your phone." he choked.

I didn't have a ringtone. I had always left it on vibrate…

"_Just gonna stand there and watch me burn, but that's alright because I like the way it hurts…"_

God dammit, Emmett.

I looked down and quickly fished my phone out of my pocket and looked at the screen. A small white envelope with the name "Alice" appeared.

_There's tons of food stocked at the house. And no one is there ;)_

I stared blankly at the screen. I loved Alice very dearly, but at the moment I felt a very strong urge to hurt her. Why had she done this? Why had she forced this wound open? And why was she sending me a message now that only concerned Jacob and Nessie's food supply?

Just then, I could here something from Marc's stomach. It gurgled and churned.

I understood.

It must have been several hours since he had eaten, we had been out here a very long.

"You're hungry." I said.

"I'm fine…" he said. "I don't feel very hungry."

I doubted that he would, given the intensity of the night and this morning. He would not feel very much like eating, but his body needed sustenance.

"You need to eat something…" I said, looking back at my truck.

He was still standing inches away from me, his hands hanging at his side. Carefully, I took one in mine.

"There's food…at my house. You can eat breakfast." I offered tentatively. "If you'd like."

Marc's eyes lingered on our hands for a while, the glimmering light reflecting off of mine and casting multi-colored rays onto his. His eyes came up to meet mine. They were calm and clear, a flame of determination flickering in the back of them. He stared into my eyes for a long moment, as he drew in a slow breath. His face smoothed and he nodded slightly.

"Okay." he said.

It wasn't a very long drive to the house, it would only be a few minutes, and no one else would be home. We usually kept a large variety of "human" food stocked for Jacob (who ate most of it) and Nessie. Carlisle suggested they keep a balanced diet between normal food and hunting animals.

I didn't know what came next. I didn't know where we went from here, only that I didn't want it to end. I didn't know how this was supposed to go, or if it even would. I only knew that I didn't want to part from him. And he felt the same. I knew what he meant when he said he didn't want to leave. I felt as if I looked away, if he were gone from my sight for just a second, he would disappear. It all felt so fragile and uncertain. But he was here. Alive and breathing, Marc was here. And his hand was in mine.

Whatever it meant, whatever it was, I didn't know what came next. So we would take it as it came, and go slowly. We would start off easy, with breakfast.

As we made our way to the truck, I quickly tapped my thumb against the screen of my phone. Typing out a short, concise message and selecting Alice's name before hitting send.

_We are going to talk._

**A/N: Oh sweet reunions! Sweet, difficult and delicate explanation filled reunions! There's a lot to be worked out between these two. A lot of heart to heart moments will be needed. And Alice? Alice is in need of a heart to heart as well. Stayed tuned my lovies. I have plenty more to share. Please click the review button and leave me some sugar. I see you readers over there in Romania! Don't think I haven't noticed. I want to hear from you. Give some feedback. Love you all!**


	12. Chapter 17: Answers

Disclaimer: I do not own Twilight, the beautiful Stephenie Meyer does. I own Marc Cavanaugh.

Sometimes it goes, and sometimes we come

To learn by mistake

That the love you once made

Can't be undone

- Sheryl Crow

17: Answers

Steam slowly rose and drifted above his plate before dissipating and disappearing in the air. Marc sat across from me, his eyes moving over me, his mouth hanging open slightly.

"Your eggs are getting cold." I said quietly, gesturing toward his plate.

His mouth closed and he looked down, remembering the meal before him.

"Oh." he said, picking up his fork and stabbing a few pieces of the scrambled eggs I had prepared. Slowly, he took a small bite and chewed it while his eyes came back to me.

It was like that for a while. The only sounds being our breathing, the steady rhythm of his heart, and the gentle clank of the fork as it occasionally grazed his plate. His eyes slowly moved over my face, studying me, before darting back down to his plate in surprise.

"These are good." He said, a small breathy laugh escaping him.

His eyes came back to mine, a small smile playing on the corners of his lips. Shy and confident, all at once. It was surreal seeing this again, after so long. So unreal to be here like this, cooking Marc breakfast, sitting across the table from him, in my house. An ordinary moment under extraordinary circumstances.

"Thank you…" I muttered, lost in the striking situation.

My eyes traveled over his features, so much like how I remembered him. Only now, there were faint traces of permanently set lines on his forehead and around his eyes. His hairline had receded slightly at the corners, creating a harder line from his forehead and dark brown locks. But it looked good on him.

"I uh…I didn't expect that you still ate…eggs." he said, looking down at his plate again.

"I don't." I said hesitantly. "My niece and her…and Jacob. They eat normal food. I cook for them sometimes."

Marc's lips formed a small "o" and his eyebrows lifted minutely.

"You have a niece…" he asked.

"Not biologically, no… But she's a niece to me." I explained lamely. "My family, we aren't blood related…we just live together. It's …" I shook my head slightly. "It's a long story."

His eyes became imploring, encouraging me to elaborate. "I don't mind." he said simply.

I searched his eyes. There was no hint of fear, no sign of foreboding or anxiety to flee as soon as possible. Just pure curiosity. How could he be so unconditionally accepting of all this? With all that had taken place in the last 12 hours, with all I had divulged to him, he was still here in front of me. Seemingly unafraid and curious.

"If you take another bite, I'll tell you…" I offered, he really did need sustenance. And a plate of eggs couldn't possibly be all he needed. Perhaps something for lunch….Let's see if we get that far.

He quickly stabbed more of the fluffy yellow bits of egg and lithely scooped them into his mouth. I watched for a moment as he chewed, his eyes on mine, waiting patiently.

"Carlilse…" I began, "is by all means a father to me, to all of us. He is the only actual Cullen, for the rest of us its an adopted name."

"Cullen." Marc repeated under his breath.

I watched as he scooped another mouthful of egg and I continued.

"He was the son of a priest, a very long time ago. He intended to follow in those footsteps; He led search parties, tracking down monsters…demons. And while hunting down a vampire with a group, he was attacked. He changed…and lived alone for a long time." I spoke slowly and carefully, watching his reactions. But he still chewed and listened.

"After some time, Carlisle was very lonely. He had surrounded himself with people, choosing to live amongst humans, work with them, but still he was lonely. He studied medicine and became a doctor. Being the man he is…he wanted to help, do as much as he could. I think he saw it as penance. But that's how he met Edward." I said.

"Edward is my brother, he was the first Carlisle changed. He was dying of the flu…in 1918."

Marc continued chewing. I paused, waiting to let my words sink in. Waiting for him to finally react to them in a way I expected anyone would. But he kept listening. Patiently listening and eating.

"Carlisle had struggled with the idea…of creating someone like him…he had never tasted human blood. The thought of taking a life was too much for him to bare, so he had always abstained. But he felt very lonely…and I think he felt he was saving Edward." I said.

Marc's eyebrows knitted together.

"But how did he survive so long? Having never …eaten?" he asked.

How the hell was he so nonchalant about this?

"My family, we don't…feed…on humans. We hunt wild game. Deer, elk, mountain lion, bear…" I explained.

He nodded slowly, his eyes meeting mine, cautious and curious.

"And have you…have you ever 'fed' on anyone…on a human?" He asked hesitantly.

"No."

He nodded again, taking my words and mulling them over.

"But you've wanted to…" he breathed. His eyes coming back to mine again, looking at me from under his lashes.

Here it was, the dawning realization I had been waiting for.

"Yes." I said.

But he just nodded slowly again.

"Is it hard?" he asked quietly. "For you?"

"It can be." I said. "But we choose to live with humans, we assume daily lives and routines amongst them and it has a desensitizing affect… but its always there."

He nodded again. "I'm sorry…Edward. You were explaining about him."

Honestly, how the hell was he so relaxed?

I stared into his eyes for a long moment, searching in them and finding only composure and acceptance.

"How are you so comfortable with all this?" I asked.

His eyes continued to hold mine, nearly just as astounded as I was.

"How do you just…take it all in? And not… not run away?" I asked, bewildered. "How are you not scared?"

"I don't know." he said quietly. "I don't know… I don't know how it is I am sitting here, with you…but I am. I don't know how… after all this time, suddenly I'm here, having breakfast with you. But I am. So I just take it all…"

His eyes met mine, open and unabashed for me to see. With nothing to hide, with nothing to fear, they held mine.

This time I was the one to nod. "Okay…Are you still hungry?" I asked breathlessly, his plate was nearly empty.

He looked down at his plate and smiled. God, that smile….

A small laugh sounded under his breath. "You talk. I'll eat."

We spent the better part of the morning like this. I cooked more eggs and this time added a few slices of toast and sausage before finding a bottle of orange juice in the fridge. I explained all I knew of my adopted family's history. How we all came to find ourselves together. How Alice and Jasper had found their way to us and how Bella, Jacob and Renesmee fit in the picture.

I hesitated to mention some of our more peculiar abilities. As easy as Marc was absorbing the bizarre reality he was thrust into, I doubted it was wise to slam him with it all at once.

"Alice found me." I said, when I had gotten to the part of my arrival.

His face had fallen more solemn and serious at this point. His eyes were staring off somewhere distant, remembering when I had disappeared.

"We looked and looked and looked…" he said quietly. "My orders had come in and they wouldn't let us all volunteer for the search crews, but we would all go in our off time…. Navage and Dorse, Kalla and Blume… they retraced the trail you had all taken and led the crews around the area."

"They found some blood, down the hill side and at the bottom…they said it was yours." He said.

His eyes were unfocused, seeing past the living room we sat in to an island far west from here. I could remember the clouds drifting over the sun that day. The smell of the air blowing up from the bay and mixing with the pine.

"They determined that you must have been attacked by a bear. That you must have died…but they never found any other trace of you." he said, his eyes lighting up. "They never found any evidence that would correlate with a bear attack. No clothes, no remnants, no bones…nothing. You just disappeared…."

I looked him straight in the eyes, feeling a heavy and solemn weight beginning to pool in my stomach. A misplaced guilt and regret for all everyone had been put through. For the things they didn't know. And for the unnecessary burden placed upon them.

"They couldn't keep searching for you. They wanted to…I wanted to. I kept in touch from California…kept tabs, but after a while no one had anything. Navie took the blame upon himself I think…he kept saying it was all his fault, that he told you there wouldn't be any danger from bears."

I could remember him. I could remember very well. Casey Navage… my brother. The poor boy. None of this was his fault. None of this was his responsibility.

"It's not his fault…" I said. "I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. It was none of their faults."

Marc's eyes came back to mine.

"You don't age?" he breathed.

"No. I don't know why…we just, we're frozen. Unchanging from how we were before…I should be thirty-two."

"You are thirty-two, technically speaking." he said.

I laughed. "Technically."

"That'll be great when you're fifty." he said, a smile playing on his lips.

"Not when I'm fifty-one…" I said, my smile fading. "Not when I'm ninety-two and everyone I knew is dead…and I can't follow after them."

Marc's eyes grew serious and regarded me.

"You won't die one day?" he asked, his quiet curiosity furrowing his brow.

"It's not…something so easy with us…I won't get sick, I'll walk away from any car accident, and I'll never grow old." I said. "My options are very limited."

"Limited?" he asked.

My eyes met his, his curiosity mingling with concern.

"That," I said, forcing a lighter tone of voice, "is another story for another time."

_Your love! Your love! Your love is my drug…_

We both looked toward the counter where my phone lay. I'm going to put that thing on silent.

"Did you want to get that?" He asked.

"No." I said shaking my head. "It can wait."

He looked away then, and nodded. There had been so much I had told him, in such a short span of time. So much had happened to us both during our separation, that I wondered if there would ever be enough time to tell it, to hear it. But I wanted to. More than anything, I wanted to hear him speak aloud all that had taken place in my absence. I wanted to know his side of the story, to hear all he had done, all that he had become.

I offered up my answers willingly, mostly. There were things I didn't think I should divulge just yet. As unbelievably and remarkably well receiving to the information as Marc was, the last thing I wanted was to push his limits too far. There was a small part in me that dared to entertain the thought, the small gleaming possibility that I would get the chance to tell him. That there would be a day when he knew all of me, when there would be nothing that stood between us. Nothing to separate us ever again. There was a small part of me that risked hoping I would know all of him. There was a small part of me that stood proudly in the face of the overwhelming odds that this could not be. That risked the imminent devastation that I knew, all too well, I would not survive.

I watched quietly as his eyes took in the room around him, taking in the centuries of collections, each a personal stamp of our own in this household. They slowly traveled over the many art pieces Carlisle had scattered throughout the house, Esme's favorite mahogany table, Edward's piano, before coming back to mine. His eyes shifted back and forth, glancing between both of my eyes, a question forming behind his lips. His fingers gently lifted up and his hand twitched before he paused.

"May I?" he asked quietly.

His hand slowly raised to once again graze his finger tips across the top of my cheekbone, gliding until they rested at the base of my ear. I watched as his eyes trailed after them, following their movements. The small crease in his brow returned, his quiet curiosity and confusion lighting his eyes. They returned to mine, dancing back and forth as his thumb followed the blazing trail his fingers had set.

"Your eyes…" he breathed. "They changed."

I felt myself move into his hand, pressing deeper into the revelry of his fire.

"Yes."

"Why?" I could feel his breath smooth over my face, rolling gently over my features and carrying his beautiful scent.

"They're beautiful." he said quietly.

I wanted to tell him. I wanted to tell him everything. Over time. How long could I stretch this out? How long would I have? I wanted to stay here. I wanted to hear about him. I wanted to know what I had missed. What I couldn't be there for. I wanted to him to tell me.

"Marc…" I said. My voice low and lazy, lost in the growing haze his touch brought.

"Tell me what happened in California."

His thumb gently moved over my skin again.

"When I left…tell me."

His eyes grew heavy at the memories my words brought up. I could see them tighten.

"Tell you what?" he breathed.

"Everything."

_Just gonna stand there and watch me burn, but that's alright because I like the way it hurts…_

For the love of all that is Holy….

Marc blinked heavily a few times, seeming to come back from some distant thought, and his eyes focusing again on the room around him.

Emmett, I'm going to have a talk with you too.

"It's my phone." I said agitated, and ran over to the counter where I had left it, perhaps a little too quickly.

Marc blinked at the space I had occupied in front of him before turning his head to find where I had gone.

I picked up my phone and tapped the screen. There was another little white envelope with the name Alice next to it. I tapped it to open her message.

_I hate to interupt, I really do. But Rose is on the warpath, I couldn't stop her. Get out._

My head snapped up, my eyes scowering the landscape through the windows, searching for movement.

_Your love! Your love!_

I tapped the screen again as a second envelope appeared.

_And yes, I know we're going to talk._

My eyes flew to Marc. He was standing now, peering over at me from the other room where I had left him.

"We need to go." I said quickly.

"Why? What's wrong?" His eyes tightened in confusion again as I snatched my keys from the kitchen table.

"Emma." he said gently, the last syllable of my name hanging heavily on his lips again.

He reached out to touch my hand. The warmth of it buzzing on the inside of my forearm where his fingertips landed.

The front door opened suddenly. And Rosalie, in all her gorgeous fury, burst over the threshold. Her eyes were wide and burning. They searched rapidly, finding me…then landing squarely on Marc.

I was in front of him, my hand had taken his and moved him behind me. The heat from his last touch still smoldering in light circles on my arm. I felt every muscle coil and tense. Rosalie was nearly twenty feet away, her eyes wild. She wouldn't get any closer.

I held Marc's hand behind me, shielding him with my body. I leaned forward, a low, dangerous growl bubbling in the center of my chest.

Her eyes blazed past me, beaming into the man behind me.

"I had to see it for myself." she breathed.

ALICE

Emma stared off into nothing, lost in thought and absentmindedly running her fingers over the blue thread wrapped around her wrist. She had never explained its sudden appearance, but she had returned home with it after Alameda. And I assumed. She had neglected time and again to remove it when it clearly clashed with certain outfits, but given its guessed sentimental meaning, I didn't force the subject. I began finding more blues and grays to involve in her wardrobe to mitigate any further fashion discrepancies.

It broke my heart to see her this way. She didn't speak of it, but it wasn't difficult to see the toll it took on her. The weight of her decision to be without him, to leave him free to live without her, had stolen something from deep within her. Something was missing inside.

We respected her decision, and gave her what distance she needed. But I kept her busy. I did my best to keep her mind occupied and distracted. I suggested that we move to New York, a thriving, bustling location with overwhelming opportunity for wonderful distraction. I had packed her schedule, nearly a full twenty-four hours each day with commotion, entertainment, disruption and attention.

But he was ever present. However involved or weighed down with activity, Emma was constantly haunted with his memory and consumed by it. It pained us all to know what she was enduring. But Edward and I knew all too well. Edward would occasionally tell me of the thoughts and images that occupied her mind. A small apartment in Alameda, a sunny meadow with a family, or murky memories of a ship's engine room and Marc and Emma's heads bent over papers. Even Jasper would shake his head from time to time and glance over at me with a knowing look.

I hadn't stopped watching Marc. I monitored his movements and decisions, keeping tabs on the developments in his life. Something had changed in him after Emma returned home. He bought a house, and became more involved in the scene around him. He met a blonde woman through a mutual friend and began seeing her regularly. The future began sprawling out in front of him, growing with more and more opportunity. And this was what Emma had wanted. This was the reason for her sacrifice. And for the reason she suffered now.

So I did not pry, I did not mettle. I let the future unfold as she had planned, and did my best to be at her side as it did. We moved around a lot, not caring to stay in any one place for too long and not feeling very attached to any of them in particular. It was a general consensus that we all missed our home in the northwest of Washington. Charlie came to visit often and Bella and Edward kept in touch with Renee. Our visits with her were less often unfortunately. We tried to keep them spaced with ample time for Nessie's growth in between. So that there would be less cause for suspicion. Life went on.

It wasn't until Marc and the blonde parted ways that I actively returned to entertaining the possibility of Emma finding him again. Every time I had tried to see them, every time I looked ahead to their future as a pair, it had always been misshapen and distorted. Separately however, their paths always included each others. In some way, in some fashion, they would always cross. But to have them merge was always difficult to see.

I watched as Emma's fingers wound themselves in the thread, her attention coming back to the present and agreeing to another arm wrestling match with Emmett. Marc had sold his home in California and returned to Baltimore, taking a job there. I saw him visiting with family and searching for a house. I saw him working, dragging wire through half constructed walls and laughing with friends.

Emma was smiling, her hand and Emmett's were locked together, their arms frozen upright in the center of the table, neither moving in any direction.

"You're going to lose, little Em." Emmett taunted, shaking his head back and forth casually. "You know it and I know it."

A peel of laughter tore from her, neither arm budged.

Emma was just as tied to Marc as the thread around her wrist. She may have left him to live his own life, but by no means had she let go. It wasn't right, for her to suffer so. But it seemed, especially to her, that this was they way it had to be. She was so stubborn, but this was her decision, not anyone elses. Not mine. But I wonder…what if they were to meet again? What if their paths crossed now?

Emma winked at Emmett, his arm bent over slightly and his smile faded.

I looked ahead, images swirled and flickered, too uncertain to form a coherent scene. What if we were to move to Maryland, if we went to Baltimore? The images slowed and became more clear. What if she were to see him again? Would she change her mind? Would she approach him? The future found us there, but it was still fuzzy, there was still so much that could change. What if I could get them in the same place at the same time? I could see us on a busy street late in the fall, there were street lamps glowing and brightly lit shop windows. What if I could get her close enough to him?

Emmett's eyes crumpled in concentration, they stared daggers at her. Emma looked as though beads of sweat would be rolling down her temple if she were able to, but she smiled again through gritted teeth and Emmett's arm fell an inch.

What if she were to see him again…. What if Marc were to see her?

With a explosion, the future unfurled behind my eyes. The visions came so thick and so fast I could hardly focus on anyone in particular. But they were clear, and vivid. There was a busy street, a bustling sidewalk. Our home, various streets, an open field, a river. I could see them together, in a sunny meadow, in tall windswept grass under the stars. Then I saw myself bustling about, yelling at Jacob…he was eating something. He was standing next to a big cake, icing on his fingers. There was a large archway made of tree braches out in the open country side with mountains in the distance. Emma and Marc stood underneath it, both of her hands in his….

Oh my God.

"You're going down, Emmett…" Emma said matter of factly. "It's going to happen."

"Bullshit!" he grunted.

"Both of you take it outside! You're going to break another table!" Esme shouted.

I sat frozen, reeling from the visions that still flared sporadically behind my eyes. I was up and moving, I was outside the door of Carlisle's study.

"Let's go to Baltimore." I said enthused.

He looked up from an old book that lay open in his hands.

"Baltimore?" he questioned.

"Yes, why not? We've never settled there. And I'm bored of South Dakota, I think we could use another city for a while." I practically shouted at him.

"We've only just arrived here, Alice." he said, a breathy laugh escaping his lips.

"Yes, but it looks like so much fun there." I told him.

"Have you ever been to Baltimore?" he asked, both of his eyebrows raised questioningly.

I casually waived it off. "Just for a little while, why not?"

"Well alright, anything?" he asked, one of his eye brows raising slightly.

I knew what he implied. It was my job to know such things, to look out for any potential problems before they could occur and compromise us. I wondered if he would approved of what I was about to do, if he would argue or veto the sequence of events I was now setting in motion. But as far as I could see, as far as I knew, nothing adverse would result from this.

"Nope." I said simply, plastering a confident smile on my face and bouncing with the growing excitement in me.

In no time at all we were there.

I bid my time, looking for the opportunity that I had seen in my vision. We would be on a busy street sidewalk, with shops full of clothes, shoes and jewelry in the windows. The more I thought about it the clearer it all became. _High Street. _There was a sign that read High street. It was September, but the weather in the vision seemed more like late October.

He would be there, he would be out looking for a restaurant at the last moment. Walking along High street. I just had to get Emma there, I had to get him to see her. As October came, I kept my focus. Diligently searching ahead. It wouldn't be long now…. The weather had changed, it was cooler in the night, an icy chill crisped the light breezes that flowed between buildings and swirled in the streets.

"What has you so distracted?" Jasper quietly wondered.

His hand came under my chin, pulling it up gently for my eyes to meet his. A small smile playing at the corners of his lips.

"Hmm? Oh, nothing…." I lied.

An eye brow arched, and he looked at me with a knowing look.

"Then why do I feel you so utterly focused on something?"

The small smile was growing on his lips and in his eyes. Why did I _ever_ bother keeping anything from him? He knew me just as well as I knew him, and I knew him completely.

I sighed and leaned into his hand, kissing the pad of his thumb as it brushed my lips.

"It's Emma." I whispered.

"Oh." He said, nodding.

"No, it's not that…" I said, straightening. "It's Marc…there's an opportunity."

Both of his brows raised.

"An opportunity for what?" he asked.

"Well…."

"Alice." he cautioned.

"Jazzy, there are somethings that can be helped, and somethings that cannot. This is one that I can help."

"I'm not sure it's very wise to mettle with these things, Alice." he said.

I took his hand in mine and held it open, running my thumb along his palm.

"This is something she needs." I whispered. "And I don't see it happening if I don't make the decision."

His brow furrowed in in pensive thought and he leaned forward so that his forehead rested on mine.

"Then perhaps it was never meant to pass." He sighed.

I closed my eyes and leaned into him, bringing his hand down and guiding it behind me. Without further prompt, both of his arms wound tightly around me and I sighed.

"No, it is." I said against his shoulder. "I just never knew until now, that the decision lay with me, not Emma."

On a crisp October night, I asked, well told Emma to accompany me shopping. I drug her through countless small corner boutiques, stalling and waiting for the exact moment I had seen. I steered her toward High street, and forced her to peer through store windows. To glance at shoes she would never wear on her own and tolerate my fashion critiques.

"I personally think you would look absolutely decadent in those." I said pointing at a gorgeous pair of six inch Christian Louboutin's.

Emma's nose wrinkled slightly and her eyebrow raised infinitesimally. At least she was _trying_ not to hurt my feelings.

"No, Alice." she said.

I knew what she was thinking. She had little vision for fashion, and only saw the price tag and height of the heel. It wasn't as if she _could_ break an ankle anyway.

"What? It's not like you're going to break an ankle." I said.

She laughed at that, and nodded in agreement.

"Still no." she said.

"Oh, you're no fun." I teased. I would have to buy them anyway. I wasn't kidding when I told her she would look fabulous in them. She had the perfect calve muscles to pull it off. And soon enough…she might want to wear them. Soon enough, she would want to wear something impressive, for a certain someone. There was always an occasion….

The moment I had seen was fast approaching. My eyes quickly scanned down the sidewalk, searching the faces to see the one I had in countless visions.

"Emma?" I edged.

"Hmm?"

"I want to talk about Marc." I eased.

Emma paused in her movements for a moment, her eyes staring off into nothing.

"You've kept an eye on him." she said quietly.

I nodded, watching as her body slowly unfroze and began breathing slowly with effort. She was trying to keep herself calm.

"He's okay?" she asked. I could hear her voice shake slightly behind the effort she put forth to force composure.

"He's fine." I assured her, and her body relaxed further, but her eyes were still concerned, and tightening with earnest.

"But I wanted to know…" I moved my eyes from hers, down to the thin blue thread that still remain loosely wrapped around her left wrist.

"I know what you decided in California. You wanted him to be able to live a normal, happy life. You wanted him to let you go. But you haven't." I said, and gently reached out my hand, taking hers and touching the thread at her wrist.

Emma's eyes watched my fingers, seeing them and also something far away.

"It's not like I can, Alice." she whispered thickly.

The time was coming, fast. Soon, he would turn the corner onto our street, his eyes casually roaming over neon signs and nightly specials that hung in restaurant windows. Soon he would walk directly in our path. Soon, he would walk directly in Emma's.

"It's not so easy for him either." I said.

Her eyes came back to mine, puzzled.

"He did move on…in a way." I told her. Easing the concern I knew she would have. "He's happier than before, living, but…I think he's still tied to you."

I kept my eyes on Emma's thread, I could feel them slipping in and out of focus as I watched his movements in my mind.

"He's dated, had a serious relationship, but…"

Just down the walkway, he appeared. Marcus Cavanaugh rounded the corner, insouciantly and unknowingly making his way toward us. I could see his head over the shoulders of others, his face weaving in and out of sight as passers by moved.

I let go of Emma's wrist and looked down at the space between us, choosing my words.

"I can't see everything Emma. Especially when it comes to the two of you as a pair, but I can see when something is inevitable, in whatever haphazard way it manifests."

My eyes met hers.

"I watched him, waiting to see if what I've done now would be justified. To see if you two were tied together, if your paths would always join again somewhere down the road."

He was getting closer, my eyes stayed on him as he approached.

Emma stopped, catching my words. Her eyes were stern and penetrating.

"Done what, Alice?" she asked.

He was getting closer. The wind was beginning to swirl, in ten seconds it would carry his scent across her face and she would know. In ten seconds, my baby sister would venture down another path. One she had always accepted was closed to her.

"Alice what have you done?" The concern was growing in her voice, demanding. Her eyes were becoming more earnest.

I looked into them. Alight with a burning curiosity that demanded clarification of my words.

"You can be so stubborn…" I said, my head beginning to shake slowly. And she was. God love her, Emma was stubborn to a fault. And she would not, for Marc's sake, have ever done this on her own accord.

Three, two, one…

"Alice-" Emma had leaned closer, her eyes and face beseeching. But she was caught short.

Over her shoulder I saw Marc's eyes come into contact with Emma's form. I saw his brow furrow in confusion and the disappointment and disbelief as he shook his head. He hadn't seen her face yet, he didn't know what he had seen. He didn't know it was really her. Emma fell silent, her eyes widening and relaxing as the crisp fall breeze drifted in front of us. He was lovely…light and fresh. What was that? Was there a name for it? It was like…sunshine and open air….I guess.

Her eyes had stayed on mine. Her mouth hung open slightly in awe, and her brow pulled up in the center. My dear sweet, Emma. I love you.

"I saw what you couldn't." I said, my voice barely above a whisper.

Her head began to turn, her eyes breaking from mine at the last second. Marc had closed his eyes tightly and shook his head before his eyes returned to Emma, chancing a second look. As she turned, I saw them search along her profile. And as she faced him, I saw them widen in astonishment and utter disbelief. His body froze and he had stopped breathing. Momentarily. After what seemed an eternity, but in all actuality was only ten seconds, his feet began to slowly carry him toward her, he looked stunned.

I clasped my hands in front of me and silently watched as my sister reciprocated Marc's movements and her feet slowly began to move her toward him. The bags that hung loosely on her finger tips dangled dangerously. They fell. _Not the shoes._ Before they could drop to the filthy concrete below, however, I silently and deftly slipped my fingers through the loops her fingers had previously occupied and scooped the bags to myself.

I watched as his eyes searched desperately over her features, his mouth moving numbly as he fought to find his voice. His hand slowly rose from his side and traveled up until his fingertips barely ghosted over her cheek.

"Emma?" he breathed.

At his touch, an explosion of images and sounds flooded through my mind. A whole new, overwhelming path burst forth and unfolded.

I watched for one moment longer. So much was to come, so much was open to her now, to the both of them. If only she would accept it. And from what I had seen, she would.

"Be happy, Emma." I breathed, and smiled at the bright future ahead of her.

Quietly, I slipped away.

I drove home, keeping an eye on the road, and an eye on what was to come. By morning, Marc would be in our kitchen…. There were eggs. Lots of eggs. And juice and toast… I wonder how much of Jacob and Nessie's food supply is left at the house? Had Jake demolished our hoard by now? I'd better make sure…one quick stop by the market.

"Edward, darling brother of mine, I need a favor." I trilled through my phone as I placed several variety of eggs in the basket.

"Alice, what are you up to?" he questioned.

"Can you not just grant me one tiny favor without an inquisition, Edward?" I asked, as innocently as I could make my voice sound.

He sighed heavily into the phone. "Why do I feel I may regret this?" he asked quietly.

"You won't." I sang. "It is for the benefit of a loved one."

"Is that loved one you?" he asked.

"Mmm… not directly, no. But it would make me very happy."

He sighed again. "What do you require of me?"

"I just need you to keep your little brood out of the house for the day, that's all."

"Alice-" he began.

"Benefit of a loved one, Edward." I reminded him.

Another sigh. "Okay. For the day." he agreed.

"Jacob, too." I added, knowing he would neglect to see him as a part of the immediate family, just yet.

Another sigh.

"You might as well get used to the idea, brother. Not too long from now he's going to be calling you da-"

"Don't you dare say another word, Alice. Not now. Not yet. She isn't…Ness isn't old enough yet." he said.

"Just saying." I eased, picking out several brands of orange juice. Is Marc a pulp man?

"Out of the house." Edward clarified.

"Thank you, brother." I said sweetly.

"Mmm hmm."

I moved down the list, calling my family to try and give them reasons for not returning home today. Asking them to run extra errands, to stop and take care of some business out of town. Esme was the hardest to sidetrack. She had a way of knowing things. As every mother, she had a keen sense for when her children were not being honest. But I assured her all was well, and to just trust my convoluted reasons. Emmett was much easier.

"Em?"

"Yeah." He called out lazily over the phone.

"I need you to keep Rose out of the house and occupied today, okay?" I said as I handed the young checkout woman my credit card.

"No prob." he said and hung up.

Bless him.

Soon the refrigerator and pantry were stocked with all I could possibly conceive Marc desiring. As Jasper and I drove away for our day trip, I texted Emma.

_There's tons of food in the house, and no one is there ;)_

I ran my fingers through Jaspers hair as he drove, absent mindedly curling it around my index finger and smoothing it out again. A few minutes later, my phone chimed.

It was a message from Emma.

_We are going to talk._

It wasn't until that afternoon that my phone rang again.

_My love's a revolver, my sex is a killer. Do you want to die happy? Do you want to die happy?_

Rose was calling.

"Yes Rose?" I asked.

"Alice, what the hell are you playing at? Why is my husband refusing to tell me why I can't be in my own house? I've called almost everyone else and they all say the same thing. That you needed them out of the house." She said, suspicion high in her voice.

I could hear a car revving in the background. I could hear the sound of tire tread on a road. She was driving home. Alone.

"Rose." I cautioned, my tone growing with acidity. "Do not go home, please. Just for a few more hours."

"What aren't you telling me?" she asked.

"Please just trust me. Do not go home, turn around. Go do something with Emmett." I said.

"Alice."

I could see her. She would burst through the front door.

"Rose, so help me God. If you scare him off, I will rip your arm off and beat you with it!" I seethed into the phone.

Shit.

"Him?" She asked suddenly. "Who the hell is in our house?" she shouted. The engine speed ramped.

"Rosalie, please. I'll explain later, but for now just trust me. Okay?"

Rose was silent for a moment.

"Where is Emma, Alice?" she asked. The tone of her voice said she already knew the answer.

"Rose-"

"She didn't pick up her phone…What's going on, Alice?" she asked, her voice low.

"Please just trust me." I said.

"Is Emma with this man?" she asked the suspicion lighting her tones again.

I hesitated.

There was a sharp gasp. "No…"

Then she was laughing.

"What did Emma bring some random man home with her? Ha, that's unlikely. She's still hung up on that-" she stopped. And then there was another sharp gasp.

"No…..No way!" she exclaimed. "Alice, are you kidding me? The human boy!"

"Rose. Do. Not. Go. Home." I repeated.

She laughed again.

"Oh my God! What's it been, a decade?" she asked incredulously. "Oh, I have to see this…" she said and hung up.

I hit redial again and again and again, but she would not pick up. She wasn't far from home now, she would be there in a matter of moments. She would open the door, Emma would be between her and Marc. Emma growled.

No! No! No!

I quickly found Emma's profile on my phone and sent another text.

_I hate to interrupt, I really do. But Rosalie's on the warpath, I couldn't stop her. Get out now._

It really was the most inconvenient timing on Rose's part, as always. I would have a lot to explain to Emma later, that I knew for certain. But for now, it seemed best that she remove Marc from the fragile situation before the bull charged into the china shop.

_And yes, I know we're going to talk._

I pushed send as my porche roared to life and Jasper drove us back home. By the time we would arrive, Emma and Marc would be gone, and Rosalie would be there waiting. She couldn't stay away for one day. Not one. So help me God if she scares him off… After everything he and Emma had withstood in their time apart, with all they would have to delicately navigate now, I really hope it hasn't be hampered. So help me God.

EMMA

"Rose…" I said as calmly as I could. My neck and back were tight, my legs coiled and ready to spring. My hands ready to grab her, given the command.

Her eyes were wide and alight, they were fixed on Marc. A small smile pulled at her lips. She moved forward.

A feral growl tore from my chest, echoing off the high cathedral ceiling. Her eyes flicked to me, and narrowed.

"Oh please yourself, Emma. I'm not going to do anything. Not unless you give me reason." She said dismissively.

Her eyes returned to Marc, and so did her smile.

"So it's true…the human boy returns." She said, a look of awe mingling in her eyes.

"Rosalie, Marc and I are leaving. Now." I said slowly.

Her head snapped back to me, and she actually looked disappointed.

"Don't be rude, Emma. At least let me introduce myself." she said.

But I did not move. I maintained my protective stance in front of Marc.

"You're Rosalie." Marc said behind me. "Emma's told me about you and the rest of her siblings, it's very nice to meet you."

Rosalie's brow pulled up in the center.

From behind me, Marc's hand raised and stretched out to her. It shook only slightly.

"I'm Marcus Cavanaugh." he said.

Rosalie looked from Marc's hand to his face and back.

Hesitantly her hand reached out to take his. My jaw locked, closing with an audible snap. Rosalie's eyes flicked to mine. They said everything she wanted to. Telling me to get over myself, and that she would be careful.

"Rosalie Hale McCarty…" she replied. Sounding slightly stunned.

My eyes were trained on her hand as it rose to accept his. I felt my jaw tighten further, cranking down as his fingers slowly molded around hers. She kept hers fairly straight, careful. With a nod, she pulled her hand away.

"Alright, we've had the pleasantries. We're going now." I said, all my words running together in my haste.

I took Marc's hand, still outstretched from shaking Rose's. I began to pull him toward the door, keeping myself between them.

"Emma, where are your manners?" Rosalie said her composure returning. "This is no way to act in front of a guest. Marc, can I offer you something to drink?"

She seemed genuinely interested in providing him our hospitality. It wasn't what I would have expected, I didn't know what she was playing at. But I was going to get Marc out of here before I found out.

"We're leaving." I said to her.

Both of my hands were on Marc, ushering in behind me as I walked backwards to the door. We were in my truck and down the road.

"You should put you seatbelt on…" I said, motioning to the empty buckle next to his left hip.

There was a small amount of traffic along the highway, they buzzed by slowly as Marc clicked his seatbelt secure. Amongst the handful of vehicles that passed us, I saw a sleek black Mercedes emerge from behind a delivery truck. Through the heavy tint, I could see Esme's eyes look up to see my truck. They traveled quickly up to me and she waved, a warm smile on her lips. Her eyes suddenly shot over to the passenger side, her brow creased slightly and her smile dissipating. They flicked back to mine and her mouth opened in surprise. But we were passed her then, moving east back into Baltimore.

"This one…" he said, pointing to the red painted side of a duplex. He still had his blue pick up.

As we walked to the door, I kept my eyes moving. Looking for any sign of potential danger. I knew it was a long shot for Rose to bother following us, but I still felt the need for the additional security. Marc unlocked the door and stepped through, tossing his keys on a nearby table and leaving it open to me. He turned to see me on the front steps, lingering on the porch.

"Oh…you can't… come in unless I invite you to, right?" he said suddenly.

What? Oh…vampire myths.

"No, I can. I just…" I mumbled.

"Come on in." He said.

Slowly I stepped over the threshold, and shut the door behind me. The enclosed space was saturated with his scent. It was bigger than the apartment in Alameda, and seemed warmer, cozier. There were new pictures amongst the old ones, and new furniture throughout.

"I'm just going to get something to drink." He said moving toward what I guessed was the kitchen. "Is there….anything I can get you?" He asked, uncertain.

"No. Thank you, I'm good." I said with a small laugh.

He smiled, but looked slightly embarrassed. He turned and disappeared behind the wall. I heard a cupboard open and shut, the scrape of glass on wood and the flow of water through a tap. Without thinking of it, my feet had again began leading me in his direction. I slowly rounded the corner to see him downing a full glass of water, setting it down and then leaning against the counter with his head down.

He stood there for a moment before shaking his head sharply and exhaling.

Here it was…. The reaction to the utterly bizarre and heavy confessions I had revealed to him. The normal, shaken response I had expected and waited for this whole time. Marc suddenly looked around, his eyes finding mine. He straightened and turned to face me fully.

I felt my face fall into my own solemn response. I felt myself begin to acknowledge what I had expected all along. Brace yourself. Here it comes. As you knew it would.

"Are you okay?" I asked, my voice had dropped low and flat.

He nodded slowly.

"Yeah, I'm alright." he said.

But I knew he wasn't. Not really.

"Marc…" I began, looking down and taking a breath to steady myself, but his concentrated scent flooded my lungs and filled my head. It made the cruelty of what was coming just that much harsher. "You can tell me. How are you really?"

"I am fine…" he said, his eyes steadily on mine. "It just feels…like my brain is on fire. It's a lot."

I nodded, and looked at the space between us. I couldn't hold his eyes any longer. It was too hard.

"I know." I said.

"It's not that I can't take it." He added quickly. "It just has to sink in."

Sink in. It took time to let things, this, fully assimilate in one's mind. It took time to fully appreciate all the angles and facets, to see the big picture. When it did sink in, I guessed it would impact him greater than it had so far. And greater than his tolerance. When it did sink in, it seemed our time together may end. I didn't know exactly how much time I had left with him, but it was dwindling fast. And I didn't know if I should do the right thing and leave him in peace now, or if I should be selfish and milk all the time I could from him. If I should save him mental and possible emotional anguish and remove myself, or answer the desperate want in me to prolong my time in his presence. His eyes were still on me, dancing back and forth between mine.

"I should go." I finally said.

But my body warred with my mind, and my feet were obstinate to oblige the command to move.

He paused and his lips parted.

He raised himself from the counter, inclining slightly toward me. He looked as though there was more he wanted to say, but the words would not form on his lips.

With great effort, my body turned at my middle, half of me beginning to face toward the door while my feet were slower to follow.

"Wait-" he choked.

I paused, stilling in my mildly contorted state.

His eyes were somewhat wild, a slight panic in them as his lips moved, searching for words that wouldn't form.

"Do you _have_ to leave?" he asked quietly.

I was still frozen where I stood. My eyes stared off, not seeing what lay in front of them, but lost in thought as his words clashed with my reasoning.

How can he keep this up? How can he keep stretching his acceptance to cover whatever ridiculous or terrifying information I might convey?

"How do you do it?" I asked. "How do you just accept everything? No matter what I confess, you just accept it and keep coming back for more…."

He looked at the floor, mulling over and articulating his thoughts before returning his gaze to me.

"You think I'll be afraid of you." he mused. "You're afraid it'll be too much for me."

"Yes I do." I said.

His brow pulled up in the center.

"I'm still waiting for you to disappear…" he whispered. "Like if I look away, you won't be there anymore. As if none of this actually happened. If I keep talking to you, if you keep talking….then I can keep you here… And I want to know. I want to know where you've been this whole time. And as unbelievable as this all has been…it means that you're real. That you really are here. Twenty-four hours ago I though you were dead. I wouldn't have believed anything I've learned today."

His head bent down, craning to catch my stare, but I kept my eyes on the ground between us.

"I'm afraid _you'll_ disappear." I admitted.

He stood regarding me, taking in my words. His breathing was rather steady, given his increased heart rate.

"I won't." he whispered.

My eyes came up to meet his then.

"Don't say that."

"Why?" he asked, a small glimmer of defiance lighting his features.

"Because it hasn't sank in yet." I whispered.

It hadn't. He was still reeling from the past seventeen hours, and he would not have had time to properly evaluate everything to make such a blindly committal statement. He couldn't know the full weight of his words…or how very much I wanted to hear them.

The defiance in his eyes wavered slightly before reaffirming. He moved toward me.

"I don't want to go." he said.

My eyes dropped to the space between us again

He moved closer still, his eyes boring into mine to force his point.

"I _don't_ want to go." he repeated with emphasis.

"Please don't say that…." I whispered.

My shoulders began to shake. I stopped breathing. He was so close now, he scent was overwhelming and it was making it difficult to focus, to do what was best and not just what I wanted.

He was right in front of me now, and his head had to crane down slightly to meet my eyes.

"I'm not going anywhere." he breathed.

I froze.

"_Hey…I'm not going anywhere…I'm your father…I'm not going anywhere…."_

I could see the sincerity in father's eyes as he spoke the words in my murky memory. I could see it in Marc's.

I wanted to make him promise it. I wanted him to swear it and never revoke his word, but I couldn't ask that of him. I couldn't ask anything of him.

I wanted, with everything in me, to believe him. I wanted to cast aside my reasons for not allowing myself to and just accept his words. Accept him. I wanted to .

With a deep sigh, my eyes closed and my head bowed forward, gently connecting with his chin.

My body went stiff. I could feel his fire burning across my forehead and resonating throughout me, slowly spreading outward from the point of contact. My eyes flashed open and I resisted the instinct to inhale.

Reactively, Marc's hand had come up to rest on my elbow, but I felt him catch himself. He froze in place. But then his fingers dragged down my arm a few inches before his hand and arm slowly moved behind me. His fingertips gingerly touched the center of my back and then smoothed out until his warm palm lay flat.

He paused there, judging my reaction and waiting for my approval or dismissal. But I couldn't think. His fire wrapped around my left side and blazed up my arm sending an electrical shock throughout my body. It buzzed in my finger tips and toes and accumulated in the center of my chest. His warmth was nearly all around me.

My brain struggled to function. The gears clanked and stuttered, but wouldn't turn. I could feel the short lengths of his stubble brush against my skin. Without thinking, without premeditation, I leaned into it.

I felt his other arm raise from his side and wrap gently around me, his palm meeting just below the other. I was encircled in his warmth. It burned around me and the electrical shockwave began to pulsate to the rhythm of his heart. It buzzed along with his breathing. I felt my eyes fall closed.

I leaned further into him, and as I did so, his arms wound tighter. I exhaled.

"Stay." he breathed.

My eyes tightened and crumpled. I didn't want to leave again…. I didn't want this to be like Alameda. I didn't want to say goodbye either….But would I have to? I couldn't think. His heat and scent and pulse and breath surrounded me. I didn't want to go. I didn't want to lose him all over again.

I had no breath in my lungs to respond. And I knew a hesitation in my response would be misconstrued. So I nodded my head….and inhaled.

Laying in a meadow beneath the stars. On a sunny day. His hand in mine. Cooking eggs. Tall grass swaying in the breeze, him walking in front of me….

I wanted that. So very badly.

My arms came up from my sides and carefully encircled him. His heat simmered into my chest and along the insides of my arms as they wrapped around his waist.

"I won't disappear…" I whispered.

Alice.

I had to talk to Alice. I would have to talk to all of them. I didn't want to leave him, and I didn't want him to leave me. So that changed things…and my family would be affected.

Marc exhaled and his warm arms squeezed tighter. His breath brushed over my hair, weaving through the strands and rolling along my scalp. I carefully moved my head to rest in the crook of his neck so that I could get my arms completely around him.

We stood there in the kitchen for the longest time. His scent washed over me and permeated my clothes. My skin absorbed some of his heat and began to warm. I wondered how cold it felt to him. But too soon came the time when he needed to sleep.

"I don't have to…I have coffee." he said. I could see him struggle to lift his eyelids higher, but they were heavy and halfway closed.

"You need sleep." I said, taking his hand and leading him up the stairs.

"Emma?" he asked, looking at his feet. "…Will I see you again, tomorrow?"

I looked back at him, his hand clasped in mine.

"I'll be here before you wake up." I said.

His tired eyes met mine and he stepped toward me as he brought my hand closer to him. His free hand came up to wrap around my shoulders and hugged me close to his chest.

Long after his eyes had closed and his breathing had become deep and regular, I sat at his side, my hand still in his. I watched how his eyes danced lazily behind their lids and listened to the gentle pulse of his heart.

How the hell did I get here? How is it that I am here, after so long. Back in his home, watching as he sleeps.

My eyes traveled from his face, down his torso to where our hands were joined. His wrist lay up against mine, pressing against the thin blue thread wrapped around it. His thread. The only thing I had of him for so long. The only physical tie I had to him, and I had believed it would remain that way. But here we were. After a decade of letting him go, of daydreams in sunny meadows, suddenly his hand was in mine. Within the span of twenty-four hours, he knew almost everything. After ten years, nearly every wall between had been knocked down in a day.

Alice had done this.

She had set this up…How long had she been planning this? How many strings had she pulled to ensure our meeting? And the what exactly did she see happening between us?

I needed to talk to her. I needed to talk to all of them. In a few hours the sun would rise, and Marc would wake. When he did, my hand would be securely in his. I looked over his face once more, indefinably grateful in the knowledge that I would see it again soon.

I remember sitting here like this, that last night in California. I remember how my hand held his then, and how he had tossed and turned in his sleep. Having a nightmare that included me. I remember staring at is peaceful face after he had stilled, and burning it into my memory. Thinking it would be the last image I would have of him. But now I wondered just how limited, or limitless those images would be.

The fingers of my free hand gently stroked through his hair, his breath running along the inside of my wrist. It tickled.

"I'll come back." I whispered.

And just like that last night in California, I leaned in, and gently placed my lips on his forehead.

"I promise." I breathed against his skin.

**A/N: Hello all! It took me a while to write this chapter, but it did turn out quite long, so I hope you enjoyed that. Don't worry, "the talk" is coming. And maybe some more touchy touchy with Marc and Emma? Perhaps? Hmm… we shall see. Keep in touch my lovies, I want to hear from you! Oh look, a review button…**

**Ringtones supplied by Emmett:**

**Kesha- Your love is my drug**

**Eminem ft. Rihanna- Love the way you lie**

**Madonna ft. Lil Wayne- Revolver**

**Opening lyrics:**

**Sheryl Crow- The Book**


	13. Chapter 18: Hopes

Disclaimer: I do not own Twilight or any of its characters, Stephenie Meyer does. But God I love Alice.

There's no changing things that we regret, the best we can hope for is one more chance

If the hands of time could just move in reverse

I wouldn't make the same mistake again, ever

The reasons I'm alone I know by heart, but I don't want to spend forever in the dark

I swear next I'll hang on for dear life,

If love ever gives me another try

-Josh Turner

18. Hopes

I didn't bother passing the traffic that toted along the city streets and highway. I didn't bother to rush, or take my time. I simply moved along the way. Half of me was attentive to the environment around me, reacting to changes in speed, lane changes, stops and go's. But the rest of me was wrapped securely in my mind, floating in the abyss of the blissfully unknown. I could not, for the life of me wrap my mind around any of it. I couldn't bring myself to calculate, assess or plan on the events of the past twenty-nine hours. Of all that had taken place, of all that was learned and spoken, I felt myself now, oddly enough, _comfortably_ overwhelmed. A gamut of concerns fell against the surface of a cocoon that buffered them from my conscience. There was fear, and question. There was scar tissue and a brittle capacity for devastating blows. But they fell limply against an odd, and stable sense of peace.

I didn't know what came next. I didn't know where I was going in this life anymore. Suddenly the whole picture, the whole plan was changed and discarded. And in it's place, sprung a blank slate. A blind path, full of unknowns and uncertainties. But rather than being frightened, I was surprisingly accepting of it. Without a doubt there would be so much more to risk. But also, agreeably, so much more to gain.

I was beginning to hope.

I was getting lost in the notion of _possibility_ despite the concerns that begged for rationalization. It wasn't really a conscious choice, but the light, unburdened feeling that held my doubts at bay, nestled itself securely in my chest. With every second it radiated outward, drifting along my bones.

The half of me conscious of my surroundings registered that I had arrived home and nudged the rest of me to come back. I sat in the driveway as my truck idled, and attempted to gather myself. But the light, open feeling in my chest did not falter. I removed my keys from the ignition and stepped out. There was a small, crisp breeze in the air that carried hints of frost. But there was a thick trail of a light, floral scent that stretched from where I stood into the quietly rustling grove of trees behind our house.

I followed Alice to the base of a tree, where her scent trailed up its trunk, to a large bough that stretched over me. She sat quiet and still, her legs crossed and her hands folded in her lap. Without a word, she gently patted the space next to her. I leapt up, touching the trunk with my left foot and pushing myself up to the outer end of the branch, settling at her side.

Her hand returned to clasp the other in her lap as she stared out at the stars that peaked through the opening of the tree tops. I had been planning on speaking with her the whole day. I had been hell bent on demanding answers from her. Demanding her reasons. In the beginning, I had felt furious. At that time I felt that beating the answers out of her was the more likely choice. I loved Alice dearly, but her actions had shocked me. Even hurt. At that time, it felt as though she had reached too deep, metteling with something too personal. And that had angered me. But as the day wore on, the context of my desire to question her changed. The urge to beat her repeatedly with one of her own limbs became less and less appealing. My anger dissipated and gave way to a hollow 'why?' before eventually building to a resigned, collected calm that only wanted an answer.

I sat next to her now, with the unyielding sense of peace in the center of my chest that muffled all else, and patiently waited. Her eyes remained on the glowing pinpricks of light when she finally spoke.

"I owe you an explanation." she said quietly.

Her eyes lowered to the space between us, and her hand gently lifted to lay open, palm facing up next to me. Much like the day I met her, she offered it as a way of asking me to trust her. And despite any questions, reopened wounds or desire to pummel relentlessly, I took it.

"You have to know that I would never do anything to hurt you." she began.

I let her speak. Letting her explain herself rather than interrupting with any response that further delayed her reasoning.

"You are my sister. And I love you far too much to allow you to spend an eternity not knowing what would have been. Not being able to truly live."

Her eyes found mine, burning with a sincerity and honesty that pierced me and stirred guilt for ever wanting to hurt her.

"Emma…" she breathed, her eyes dropping to our hands and the fingers of her free hand finding the thin blue thread that was wound around my wrist.

"You would have kept your word." she said. "You would have left him to live a life without you."

Her eyes creased in the center as her fingers roamed over the tread.

"But you would have gone to him anyway…eventually. Keeping a distance and watching over him until he died."

I watched as her face twisted up with emotion.

"You shouldn't have to suffer." she said.

I placed my other hand over both of hers and stilled her movements. Her eyes found mine again. This time I didn't have to hold anything back, I didn't know what _to_ say.

She sighed heavily and looked up to the stars again. "Oh, to be a big sister…always having to look out for the little ones." she laughed. And I laughed with her.

"Your paths always seemed to coincide with each other, just never quite meeting. But when forced to join…" she trailed off, a small smirk building in her eyes and on her lips.

The concerns in me pounded on the boundary of the sturdy serenity that muffled their sounding, and demanded to be recognized.

"I did this solely because of the future I saw for you two. How happy you'll be…. You don't have to be without him, Emma." she whispered.

The concerns banged louder. There were reasons why I had been without him. Very valid reasons. For his sake.

"You deserve to be happy…."

The same old fears came to the surface. The same problems I had seen arising from my being with Marc could no longer be ignored. Though the light in me never ceased or shook, I felt the same solemn legitimacy of my questions. What would he have to give up being with me? What would being with me cost him? I stared down at our hands, at her fingers still interlaced with Marc's thread.

"Alice?" I began. My voice sounded small.

I couldn't overlook the strong potential of problems that would arise from this, though I wanted to. I knew they would have to be addressed. And if anyone were to know how much of a threat those problems posed, my sister would have a pretty informed insight.

"What…what do you see?"

The small smile returned to her features.

"There's so much ahead of you, Emma…" she breathed. "_So many _good things."

The light in my chest began to swell, but I didn't want it to. I didn't want to get ahead of myself, or hope too much. There was still the brittle capacity for losing anything that had to do with him.

Alice gave my hand a squeeze and leaned in, holding my eyes with hers.

"I see you being very happy." she breathed. "Both of you."

The light grew, expanding outward and filling every part of me. I inhaled deeply, my breath catching and my head bowed forward as I was overwhelmed. Alice's hands suddenly left mine and I felt her arms wrap around my shoulders.

Please.

Please let that be true….

The open, unburdened peace permeated every cell, every inch, and wrapped around me. It was a solace born of every memory of him. Of every moment in windswept meadows, of every starry night. Of every need. It was mercy.

She held me tightly, rubbing her palm up and down my back.

"Can I ask you something?" she asked against my shoulder.

"Can I _please_ be your maid of honor?"

I pulled back to look her in the eye.

"What did you say?" I breathed.

Alice just smiled at me.

All around us the world continued to move. A slight breeze rustled the leaves around us and swayed the thinner branches. In the boroughs people slept. Traffic hummed off in the distance. But it stopped for us. For me. The light in me buzzed and hummed, as if it in tune with a pulse long gone. It beat in me silently in place of an immobile heart.

"Alice…" I breathed.

She nodded arduously as her smile began to scrunch up her face with emotion. I exhaled sharply as her arms were thrown tightly around me again. My hand raised and rested on her arm that crossed me. There was going to be a wedding…. My wedding.

"So can I?" she asked.

I laughed out loud, but my voice broke and shot up an octave. I rested my chin on her arm.

"Don't you already know the answer?" I asked.

"Yeah, but I thought it would be rude to just claim it." she mused.

I laughed again.

"Of course." I breathed.

She gave a small squeeze.

"Also, you've already decided to give me free reign on the wedding planning….I'm holding you to that one."

I froze.

I had decided that. A few years ago, at Kate and William's wedding. It had been just a passing fancy, a fantasy that I did not see coming to fruition. But I had decided it all the same. Son of a bitch.

Alice pulled away enough to look me pointedly in the eye.

"No takesies backies." she said sternly.

Most of me was frozen with fear of what it would all entail. But then again, a part of me wanted to let her.

"O-kay…" I said brokenly, as if that terrified majority of me were trying to reign the words back in before the left my lips.

Alice suddenly jumped and squeeled. She wrapped her arms tightly around me again and gave one mighty squeeze. For just a brief second, I wasn't entirely sure if my arm wouldn't snap off at the shoulder.

"Oh, there's so much to do!" She exclaimed. "But first things first, Marc's going to wake in two hours. You need to be getting back soon. Come on."

She took my hand again in hers and we dropped to the ground below, deftly and silently landing on the balls of our feet.

She looked me in the eyes once more, her face becoming serious, and pulled me into another hug. Gentler this time. Alice breathed deep.

"Be happy, Em." she whispered.

I leaned my head into the crook of her neck and wound my arms tighter around her.

"Thank you, Alice." I whispered.

"No need to thank me, sweetie." she said.

"Hmm…you smell like him." she said pulling away and eyeing me teasingly. "I don't even want to know…" she trilled, grabbing my hand and leading us back to the house.

"I….what?" I exclaimed.

Alice giggled deeply. "Come on…"

They were all there, gathered in the living room and waiting for us. Alice gave my hand one last squeeze and skipped off to stand at Jasper's side, beaming.

The room still had faint traces of Marc. I could smell him as I looked around, taking in all their faces. For the most part, they all looked just as surprised by the turn in events as I was. I looked to Carlisle. As the eldest, and as my father, I trusted his judgment in all things. And as irreversibly attached as I was to Marc, I still sought his approval. He stood at the hearth of the fireplace, his hands resting in his pockets. His face was hard to read, but he seemed politely happy. Esme was at his side. Her hands were clasped tightly in front of her and she suppressed a smile as if she were holding back. But her brow lifted in the center and she suddenly rushed forward, lifting me with the force of her embrace.

"Oh, Emma." she exhaled. She held me tightly for a long moment before pulling back and placing her hand on my cheek. I thought she was going to cry.

She beamed at me, her smile reaching her eyes. "That was him, in the truck earlier?"

"Yes." I answered.

Her smile broadened and she pulled me into another hug.

"So, Marcus." Carlisle spoke.

Esme pulled away and moved to stand at my side, facing him. She never broke contact with me. Both her hands trailed down my right arm and found mine, she held it tightly.

"Alice tells us he is an exceptional young man." he said.

"He is." I said.

Suddenly I was apprehensive, wary that Carlisle may disapprove of just how much I had divulged to Marc.

From the corner of my eye, I saw Esme's warm eyes beaming and taking in my features. Carlisle nodded and smiled warmly.

"I trust he is." he said. His eyes were kind and sagacious. "But a word of caution, Emma. He is human. We've had experience in this before, it is not an easy road to take."

"It's not quite the same as my experience, Carlisle." Edward interjected. "His scent does not have same affect on her as Bella's did for me."

"There are still risks." Carlisle said. "With heavy consequences."

"I haven't seen anything negative." Alice offered.

"All the same, you will need to be careful, Emma. If this is your choice." he concluded.

I nodded, and Esme and Alices' smiles deepened. And so did Rosalie's.

She stood at Emmett's side, whose arms were crossed. I looked at his face, his eyes were slightly narrowed, fixed on me. And a smirk hung on his lips, pressing dimples in his cheeks.

But I didn't have time to inquire of his grin, I didn't have time to go over everything that needed to be discussed or explained with them. Those conversations would have to be postponed, because soon enough the sun would peek over the horizon and stream into Marc's window.

Alice was already pushing me out the door, nit picking my hair and adjusting my clothes.

"Would you stop!" I said as she attempted to apply lip gloss on me.

"Emma." her face became adorably stern. "Help me help you."

"I don't need that." I said sliding into my truck and closing the door.

"Hey," she called through the tinted window. "love you."

I smiled back at her. She waved as I backed down the drive and turned onto the highway.

He was still soundly asleep when I entered his bedroom. He lay on his stomach, both arms tucked under his pillow. His cheek rested heavily above them, forcing his lips to open slightly. I sat at his side and watched as he slumbered for just a while longer. His deep, even breath keeping time with the slow thrumming of his heart. His hair was a mess, its loose waves were matted down on one side and pushed up on the other. I gently ran my fingers through a curl and watched as sunlight gradually lit the room, and rose to touch his features. It lit his skin, and brought a soft glow. Light refracted off my hand and sent dots of light against the head board. I felt the warmth of it scale up my arm to touch my neck and face. When it did, the room was filled with multicolored rays that danced off my features. They shone against his warm skin.

It caught me by surprise how much I liked that, seeing light that bounced off me dancing along his skin. Marc's eyes slowly opened, and roamed over my face. They took in my features as he lay there, his breath still even and slow.

"You're here." he said, his voice thick with sleep.

I ran my fingers through his hair again.

"I promised."

I gave him privacy while he got dressed, and waited down in the kitchen and made coffee.

"I'm calling in sick today." he said after coming down stairs. "It's Friday, we won't have much lined up for the day."

We sat at a small table in his kitchen that had been placed against the wall. He looked down at his cup after taking a sip. "You make coffee for your niece?" he asked with a smile.

"Occasionally."

"Mmm." he hummed as he brought the cup back to his lips and smiled wider.

I watched his many movements. Humans always seemed to be moving. Shifting and adjusting, tapping their fingers and stretching. His movement was fascinating. And the light in me nearly buzzed with it. It made me smile.

"What?" he asked, catching me.

"Nothing." I said and looking instead at my hands that were joined on the tabletop.

"Emma?"

"Hmm?"

He paused, formulating his words as his eyes fixed on the cup in his hands.

"What's it like?" he asked quietly. "Do you feel different? From before?"

"I don't think so." I replied. "I don't really remember being very different from now. Do I seem different to you?"

The same, small smile touched his face.

"No, I don't think so. You still seem very much like I remember, but your eyes are different."

"I know. I don't know what causes them to change color exactly, Carlisle has a theory…"

"No, it's not just that." he interjected. "There's just something different about them…they just seem older. Aged. Like they're the only thing that have been affected by time."

"No, I can't age." I dismissed.

He shook his head slightly as his eyes took in mine. "Not physically. But you've grown with time, it's still had an affect on you. Like you've seen a lot for your age."

I stared at his hands, wrapped around the warm coffee cup and watched as the steam slowly rose from the hot liquid inside.

"This life….It changed things. I had to start over. I had to start a new life, and let go of everything and everyone I knew. Dead people don't just go home and see their family and friends… I lost that." I said quietly. "So I guess it did have an affect on me. That took a toll."

I could feel his eyes on me, but I didn't meet them. His hand came over mine, and held them.

"I'm sorry." he said faintly.

I half shrugged. "I've made peace with it."

His eyes creased slightly.

"I'm still here." he said. "I'm still in your life."

I smiled at that.

"Yes, you are."

His smile reached his eyes and caused them to crease at the corners.

"Breakfast?" I offered.

"I'll cook." he said, standing from his chair. "I'd hate for you to think I'm incapable of taking care of myself."

A breathy laugh escaped me. "I don't."

I had seen him cook for himself many times in Alameda. I was proud of him and thankful that he didn't rely on frozen, 'ready to eat' meals. I doubted they could provide sufficient nutrition. In fact, he seemed to be quite comfortable in the kitchen, concocting various recipes.

"Don't get me wrong," he said as he rounded the counter to pull a pan from the cabinet. He stuck his chest out mockingly prideful. "Your eggs are great and all…but I make a mean bacon and cheese omelet."

I sat and watched as he ate. We talked of various things, preferences such as dogs and cats, trucks or cars, red or blue, Democrat or Republican, religion, and the ultimate denominator: chick flick or action flick.

"Oh, action. Every time."

"Really?" he laughed. "You don't enjoy following Julia Roberts in her latest journey to find a _sensitive_ man?"

The omelet on his plate was long gone and only cool, miniscule bits of egg remained.

"Nope." I said shaking my head. "I can't take them."

"Oh come on, you know secretly you wish you could be her…." a smirk grew in his eyes.

"Oh, God…" I said, disgusted.

He laughed deep and long. Enough to cause his eyes to crease at the corners and deep dimples to set in his cheeks as he bent over the table.

"They're too cheesy!" I explained. "They're unrealistic, and sappy …. Just no."

He laughed again.

"There are some good ones." he said, catching his breath.

I looked at his face for a moment. There was something there in his eyes, a tell. Some admittance flickered briefly behind them.

"Oh my God…."

"What?" he asked, remnants of tears still clinging to the edge of his lower eye lids.

"You like chick flicks."

"I do not…." he said dismissively.

"You do." I accused as he baulked. "You're a chick flick guy…."

"I am a man, Emma. I don't watch girly movies." he said.

"Mmm hmm…. I bet if I raid your DVD collection I'll find 'Sex and the City 3' or something."

His eyes widened for a tenth of a second.

I mock gasped.

And raced to the cabinet under his tv.

"Emma!" he called after me a second later.

The doors were already open, and my eyes had already scanned the titles of the many plastic boxes stacked and shoved together.

Oh. My. God. No.

"No, no, no, no!" he chanted, running into the living room and wrapping his arms around me in an attempt to pull me away before I could discover anything. But it was too late, the damage was done.

"Hahahahaahahahahahahahaha!"

I fell back laughing, crumpling with the paralyzing affect that stole over me.

His fire was wrapped around my shoulders and pressed along my back and legs as he fell with me, his body shook with a few laughs of his own.

"That's just rude!" he exclaimed. "You can't just barge into a man's movie collection. There might be porn in there!"

"Hahahaha! You…haha, you have 'The Notebook!' Hahaha!" I could feel my chest almost implode as my core contracted, every last bit of air being squeezed out as I roared and gasped for more.

"What? It's a classic!"

He continued to defend himself as a fresh wave of debilitating laughter crashed over me.

"So technically, it's not a 'chick movie'." he said.

My head fell to the side as my abs contracted. It rolled onto his warm shoulder and I noticed his arms were still wrapped securely around me.

My body jolted with the last giggles and deep guttural laughs.

"That's …Emmett's favorite… movie, he'd never admit it. But it is." I said in between core contractions.

"It isn't bad…" Marc mumbled. I could feel his head shaking back and forth slowly as his nose grazed the back of my neck with each pass.

He was embarrassed.

"I'm not laughing at you, Marc." I said out of breath.

My hand had some point rested along his arm that was circled around my stomach. I rubbed the skin there with my thumb.

"I just didn't expect _that_." I said, trying to suppress a fresh fit of giggles.

He exhaled slightly and I turned to look him in the eye to make sure I didn't indeed hurt his feelings.

"Hey…."

Our eyes locked. I could see every detail in his. There were thin veins of grey that wove throughout his sapphire irises, like marble.

"I didn't mean to hurt your feelings." I breathed.

But a small smile touched his features, telling me he didn't take offense.

Then they turned calculating. And the smile became a smirk.

"I'm going to make you watch it." he said conniving.

"Whaaat?"

"Yep. That's what you get for mocking my taste in film. We're watching it." he said.

An hour and forty-five minutes later, we were lounged on the sofa, and I was actually watching it. Of all the times I had caught snippets and clips with Emmett's indulgence, I had never really cared for it. Even now I remained apathetic. But I will admit, the ending always got me.

I liked James Garner. I found myself actively engaged in what was happening only whenever he and the older lady were onscreen. I found them to be far more believable and likable than their youthful counterparts.

When they died together, asleep in their bed, her hand in his… that part got me. It wasn't cheesy or sappy. It wasn't some clichéd, unrealistic or unattainable Hollywood version of love. It was something that could found here in life. Rare, and special, but real.

I wasn't against romance movies altogether, just shoddy one dimensional, factory-stamped mockeries passed off as genuine 'romance.' It was the real romance movies that I appreciated. It was those that touched the very soul in me. And with this older couple, their fingers forever intertwined, it shone light on that deep part of me not forgotten. It breathed with life however deeply buried, and burned brighter with every passing moment.

It was brought about by Marc. It existed because of him, burning in me like the fire from his skin. And refusing to be ignored in his absence all those years, waiting almost knowingly for the time I would find myself here, again at his side. Sitting on a couch with him and watching a movie. An ordinary moment.

"See?" he said almost teasingly.

I was snapped out of my reverie with his words.

"What?" I asked, turning my eyes to his.

"It's not bad." he said with a smile.

"No," I admitted. "It actually isn't. But I prefer the older version of the couple. They're far less annoying." I said, returning his smirk.

He mock gasped before dismissing it with a throaty laugh.

"Hmm… Well next time you can pick the movie." he said, hesitating to meet my eyes. "This isn't exactly what I had in mind for our first date…."

His eyes met mine then.

"I owe you a proper date."

I sat there, listening to his breathing and mine. Unable to form a coherent reply immediately. But one finally came.

"I'd like that." I said quietly.

The same quiet, shy smile pushed his dimples in place again. I could never get used to that. It was just as fascinating each time.

That night he fell asleep, again with my hand in his.

I watched as the moonlight touched his face and lit the soft waves of his hair. The gentle and steady rise and fall of his chest as he breathed.

Alice had seen herself as my Maid of Honor. She had seen Marc and I being married sometime in the near future… My eyes roamed over his face as the thought washed over me. I could see us standing under an archway made of two joining branches, laced with millions of tiny white flowers. My hands in his as Carlisle stood before us, and open Bible in his hands.

My own parents would not be there on my side of the wedding party, nor would my brothers. But Emmett would be there. Probably giving me the thumbs up instead of Blume. And Jasper, Edward and Jacob would be there also. They were my brothers in this life, in this family.

I tried to imagine Marc's side being there.

What would they be like?….What would they think of me?…What would they think when I did not seem to age from one Christmas gathering to the next? And what about his aging?

No.

He would continue to age. He had to. Taking that from him, asking that of him, was too much of a price.

_Eventually he'll age to a certain point….Eventually he will die._

"I know." I conceded to myself.

_Eventually you will be in this bed with him, holding his hand when he passes…but you won't go with him._

The thought stung. But it was an unavoidable truth that I had known all along. Too well.

I wondered what Alice had seen in that regard. I almost didn't want to know. The thought of taking his life, like mine had been taken was criminal. But the thought of losing him, in only maybe four or five decades left a hollow void in me. There would be nothing left in me then. I would be an empty shell for an eternity. Infinitely worse than any torture of being without him that I had experience so far. Absolute in its torture, because I would then have the knowledge that he were not happy somewhere far from me. I would not be able to travel to somewhere like Alameda and see him again. I would not find him ever again.

I banished the thoughts from my mind. It was an unavoidable truth that would have to be confronted eventually. But for now, he was here with me. I decided that immersing myself in this present time was more important. He was here _now_.

My free hand gently combed through his hair again.

His closed eyes were still and peaceful. His warm hand gave a gentle smolder that radiated up my arm. His slow, deep breath ebbed in and out of his parted lips.

He was going to marry me.

I paused my hand in his loose waves as my eyes stayed on him.

Slowly, and gently I moved forward across the space of the mattress that lay between us. Gingerly laying out atop the soft blankets. I lay at his side and watched him sleep.

With his gentle breath washing over my face, I closed my eyes and pretended to sleep at his side. My hand in his.

**A/N: In all truth, those are my exact feelings on The Notebook. Don't hate me. I apologize for this chapter being shorter than the previous, but I wanted to get it out there. I have been, and will continue to be incredibly busy at work. But worry not my dear lovies, there is so much more to come. Oh the first date is coming! Alice is going to have a field day with getting poor Emma ready. And some other will join in perhaps? Maybe some revenge makeup from Jake? Remember that little bit? Jacob does. And he's still pissed.**

**Anyway, hope you loved the short, lovely chapter. Finally some good happiness in little Em's life. She deserves it, no?**

**GIVE ME SOME FEEDBACK! LET ME KNOW WHERE YOU STAND IN ALL THIS!**

**Even if it is to express how very much you love The Notebook.**

**I still don't. **

**Sorry.**

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